Super-Crunchy Non-GMO Granola

I'm writing this blog post in particular because I had a conversation very recently, the outcome of which is still upsetting me. Many people here in the South often stereotype "Liberals" as being whiny little piss-babies with empty heads and full wallets. I promise you this, I would not have considered moving South of the Mason Dixon line if I could afford, or stand, to continue living in my home (mostly Blue) State of Maine: Be advised, many Mainers are losing what little patience they already had with that fuck-stick of a Governor they call LePage (dude looks like my alcoholic auntie without her wig on, and whose decision-making capabilities and capacity for sound judgement are comparable) 

When it comes to talking about Soldiers and Veterans, especially in terms of politics, I tend to see a great deal of what I like to refer to as "Flag-Fapping." That is, publicly and unabashedly waxing 'patriotic' for the sole purpose of drawing attention to ones' self. The practice of Flag-Fapping can be readily observed manifesting in a variety of forms, such having one's photo taken holding a Bible in one hand and some manner of fire-arm in the other. Instances of Flag-Fapping often include, but are not limmited to, unnecessary bald-eagle paraphernalia, a perceived over-abundance of bacon, seemingly excessive "thanking" of the troops, posting Ayn Rand quotes out of context (intentionally) or most puzzling of all, expressing outrage over (real or perceived) desecration of the American flag while citing the Flag Code, also simultaneously wearing a t-shirt with the American flag printed upon it (which is ALSO a violation of that same Flag code, see also the landmark SCOTUS ruling Texas v. Johnson)

Flag-Fapping: You want everyone to know you're so goddamn patriotic that you can jerk it to the Star Spangled Banner, cum fireworks, whose sparks then turn into eagles that fart red-white-and-blue streaks across the sky as they fly in formation over untold hordes of marching troops, as legions of adoring civilians shower their heroes with bacon and $100 bills.

'Murica! FUCK YEAH!

Most of the time, when people thank me for my service, it's genuine; and I can tell the difference between a kind gesture versus Flag-Fapping. But when my military service gets dragged into online arguments about really bizarre things like wether or not someone thinks Caitlyn Jenner is "brave," then has the audacity to weild ME like a fucking shield, I wanna throw up in my mouth a little. Caitlyn Jenner just wants to be who she wants to be, and stood on a stage in a theater full of strangers openly declaring as such: That's a bigger deal than many people realize, and I'm not even talking about stage-fright. What pisses me off is that blind hero-worship is SO PREVALENT in our culture that the very idea of a soldier or veteran disagreeing with the person doing the Flag-Fapping/sheild-weilding, that soldiers and vets (like myself) that DON'T fit this constructed narrative are often dismissed, shunned, or called traitors.

It's more than just annoying, it's downright fucking rude: I am a PERSON, not your PROP. Please stop using my military service to justify things like racism, homophobia, transphobia, in fact, just stop doing that altogether. If YOU'RE a veteran, use YOUR OWN damn service as a platform for your opinions (whatever they might be.) Stop waving the suffering of other human beings around like a goddamn flag because you're too closed-minded to grasp otherwise simple concepts like equality and justice!

(sigh) ... And NOW, the reason I'm making this post.

The other extreme, the ultra-uber thrice-tie-dyed far-Left, is relatively rare (in my experience.) As previously mentioned, I grew up in Maine, which is probably (at the time) one of the most "liberal" States you've ever heard of. I lived in Portland for about 5 years, watched the Old Port transform from a cluster-fuck of grungy dive-bars to another cluster-fuck of trinket shops tailor made to drain gullible tourists of their money. Hippies, hipsters, homeless people, you name it we had it: It was also a super-expensive place to live, eventually I had no choice but to move South.

Being a godless lefty myself, there are times I think I've heard damn near everything. A few days ago, I found out that I was quite wrong: Over the course of my entire life, only 5 TIMES has anyone ever inferred that I'm a murderous peice of shit war-criminal directly responsible for the deaths of innocent Iraqis. Three of those five times it was through Tumblr (which should surprise exactly NO ONE) and another one time through Twitter. A few days ago, it was said straight to my face.

For the interest of not directly incriminating specific people and preserving my "career," I'm actually going to refrain from saying where I was, what I was doing, or even what started the conversation. I CAN tell you, that during the course of the "conversation" I found myself frequently cut-off, interrupted and talked-across, and that was even BEFORE I mentioned the fact that I'm an Iraq Vet. Not too long after which, I heard a sequence of generalized statements regarding the "Military Industrial Complex" (which doesn't mean what most people seem to think it does) along with corporate greed (which is true, no argument from me THERE) and that, basically, if people wouldn't enlist at all, there'd be no 'war machine' to keep rolling.

Whoah there! I was just a comms-technician, but a lowly pog, and by my own free admission not even a very good one at THAT! What's all this about WANTING to kill other human beings? That's a pretty bold statement about my character coming from someone who just met me less than an hour ago, in fact I can honestly (fortunately) say that while I was in Iraq I never once was put in a position where I had to shoot at or kill ANYBODY. My job was asking brass-grabbing Officers if they've tried plugging something in or turning it off-and-on again, not lining people up for some kind of slaughter. Basically, my job never involved killing anyone.

Her response: "Yeah, I'm sure the Germans making tick-marks on their lists as people were marched into the ovens said the same thing."

...

I can be, as I often think that I have always been, an asshole. But what I AM NOT is a needlessly violent person, and I say "needlessly" in particular because I'm not the kind of person to intentionally start a fight with anyone. If someone throws the first punch and I can't get away, then of course, hitting them back is understandable. I think most rational people would agree that resorting to violence in a moment of anger doesn't accomplish anything.

I didn't even feel like flipping my desk, I just wanted to cry.

Seriously? Did you just compare me to a goddamn GESTAPO and then try to play off the whole conversation like you're somehow a victim of a system you obviously KNOW NOTHING ABOUT? Do you honestly mean to tell ME that you're incapable of discerning the fundamental difference between fixing a phone and FUCKING GENOCIDE?!?!? 

Holy shit, I met one... a real one, alive and in the flesh: I actually met what Flag-Fapping strangers on the internet think that I AM (which I am SO FUCKING NOT) ... an ignorant sack of crap. I know, I know, I m breaking the 'cardinal rule' of atheism and debating, "Thou shalt not resort to Ad Hominem, for it is a logical fallacy and just not a nice thing to do anyway" but I do have my fucking limits. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't handle accusatory statements very well: When a previous employer accused me of something I didn't do, all it took was the mere hint that I was considering legal action and they shut right up, and to think that it all could have been easily avoided if they had just checked the damn cameras like I told them to.

As previously mentioned, this is extraordinarily rare. Even among fellow liberals, damn near none of them genuinely harbor this kind of "fuck the troops" mentality that the right-wingers often stereotype us for. As for the three instances I encountered on Tumblr, it's Tumblr. Even Tumblr is occasionally shocked and disgusted by Tumblr, so I can't say I was at all surprised. Hurt and pissed off, but not surprised. But coming out of the mouth of an actual human being, it cut deep.

And I didn't even get a proper chance to explain the error of her statement or otherwise defend myself.

Something I can do in abundance (and without restraint) HERE...

America's occupation of Iraq was illegal and never should have happened, already there seems to be some measure of agreement among historians, legal experts and some military leaders on THAT. Even I won't dispute it, I really won't. But here's the big glaring obvious difference between MY military service and what the Nazis did to the rest of Europe: Genocide and destruction was the single primary goal and purpose of the Nazi regimes, and while Bush used shoddy information to justify the violent invasion of Iraq in 2003, our military objectives and missions were absolutely NOTHING OF THE SORT. 

On that note, Abu Ghraib never should have happened, but here's the difference: The people involved are monsters who broke the law for their own sick satisfaction, and those responsible were rightly tried for their crimes and sentenced to prison. Well, except the Officers in command, of course, which doesn't surprise me at all. Officers can get away with damn near anything, including ACTUAL war-crimes, it seems. The difference between Abu Ghraib and Dachau is that while it never should have happened at all, when we DID find out about it, we held those responsible accountable.

The difference between kicking down doors looking for suspected insurgents versus kicking down doors and rounding up whole families into trains should be painfully obvious, but aparrently not. Do you honestly mean to tell me that giving food and shelter to Iraqi families whose lives were destroyed by Saddam's Fedayeen & Ba'ath Party is in any way comparable to shoving people into gas ovens? 

And on the subject of Iraqis killing EACHOTHER, I hate to rain on your pity-parade, but that was actually a thing. And unless you've been living under a rock, it still is very much a thing. If you want to rant about millions of dead Iraqis, fine, but I'm going to write up a little equation for you to try and work out and see if your "answer" still holds up.

Consider the following: A "sovereign" nation with a dreadful track-record of killing it's own people off en-mass for no significant reason other than their 'dear leader' felt like it. This nation had no established polling or census means in it's entire history, meaning that unless you were a registered member of the Ba'ath Party, your life didn't matter. That means that Kurds, Yezidis, Armenians and other non-Arabs living in the country (even other muslims, especially Shia) were perceived as having no value and not fully human. Anyone the Ba'ath or the Fedayeen felt like fucking with had no recourse, to include extermination and enslavement. Now... in comes an invading force hastily thrown together at the collective whim of their own "leaders" without proper training or equipment, not knowing anything about the local culture or even the language, nevermind the atrocities they've been effectively commiting against THEMSELVES that were already going on since the 1970's. Someone shoots first, the other side shoots back, people die. The regime falls, but the Fedayeen manage to keep their shit together and enlist outside help in maintaining thier presence among the people. Without a government to serve, the Fedayeen no longer need uniforms or flags, just persistence and unabashed cruelty. They continue torturing and executing anyone who gets in their way, including anyone sympathetic to the invaders or even accused as such, just as they always have before the invaders arrived. A group of invaders fucks up royally (E.G., Abu Ghraib) and the Fedayeen manage to turn the situation to their advantage, justifying even more killing because hey, "we're not as bad as THOSE guys." After a long and bloody war of attrition (basically, who can be the sicker bastards) the occupying force eventually gathers what they can and leaves, while what's left of the Fedayeen forces give themselves a new name and dines on the corpse of an already broken country.

After all of this, if the answer you come up with is still "f(x) = Hitler" then you clearly haven't been paying attention to what's been happening int he Middle East, or in the U.S., for the last 30 years. And that wall-of-text took me the better part of an hour to carefully word-smith to leave room for error: Few military historians seem willing to touch this particular topic, so I've taken to reading & researching it on my own for the last 3 years.

No, we can't account for the millions of Iraqis that were killed during the occupation because we have no reliable way of knowing how many of them were dead before we got there.

Trust me, you don't need to lecture ME about how fucking horrible war is. But what you AREN'T going to do is put me in a box, demonize me for things I had no control over, and then tell me that this is somehow MY FAULT because poverty drove me to a particular line of work that you happen to not like. Do you have any goddamn clue how many people enlisted after the housing bubble burst in 2008? Do you have any idea how many people enlist just to get as far away from the inner city/trailer park/reservation as they possibly can? If you had no other prospects what-so-fucking-ever for basic needs like food, shelter, healthcare or even education, ESPECIALLY if you have kids, tell me with a straight face that the thought wouldn't cross your mind. Tricare health benefits FOR KIDS: I've lost count of how many people I've met who enlisted for THAT REASON ALONE! But no, we're all mindless blood-crazed Nazis because you don't understand what our military ACTUALLY IS?

Do you really think it's just as easy as telling them to lay their weapons down and refuse to fight, because YOU say so, when often the penalties for doing so include a felony conviction and imprisonment without parole, or never seeing their families again? Do you not understand that you can't force your ideals, for good or ill, onto other people just because you personally don't approve of their choices? On that note, do you even have a working concept of what freedom of choice means and why others aren't obligated to agree with or even respect your opinions, or mine for that matter? How can you say to me, with a straight face, that you're a Buddhist and all about compassion for other sentient beings while simultaniously telling me that my own suffering was deserved because I, like millions of other Veterans before me, just wanted a paycheck and some hot meals? SERIOUSLY?!?!

If you REALLY cared about stopping bullshit wars, then be ever mindful who you vote for and who you buy things from: THEY make the decisions, NOT ME. And ACTUALLY fucking vote, I hope at least you're not THAT much of a coward.

We live in a country that was founded on, built upon, and continues to thrive by way of, prowess in warfare. If you were really so genuine in your self-proclaimed commitment to peace, then you'd give your house and land BACK to the Native Americans your ancestors stole it from without bickering about the massive financial loss you'd suffer. If your commitment to stopping war in the Middle East was as sincere as you claim, you'd never use anything with an internal combustion engine (to include public transportation) OR anything made of plastic, EVER AGAIN.

But you're not going to do any of that, are you? Of course not, that would be inconvenient. Of course it would be, just like the aura-shattering reality that HUMAN BEINGS OCCASIONALLY KILL ONE ANOTHER, and on occasion THEY ARE justified in doing so!  That doesn't make the situation any less shitty, but it's the world we live in wether or not we like the idea. Are soldiers and Veterans somehow not deserving of the exact same 'compassion' you claim to emulate?

Because if you think what you're peddling is 'compassion,' calling me and others like me "Nazis" or "war-criminals" isn't compassion: It's arrogance, ignorance, and fucking disgusting hypocrisy.

You're doing just as much damage as the Flag-Fapping theocratic Republicans, and you can't even be completely honest about it.

Ever hear of Tumblr?

New Artwork (NSFW)

This is proving to be an interesting, and somewhat difficult, Summer for me. I somehow managed to pass the most difficult algebra course I've ever taken (and, hopefully, the LAST ONE I'll ever have to take) in my entire life... with a B. Don't mistake my amazement for ingratitude, because I'm glad I passed the course & met the University curriculum requirement, but holy shit I suck at math so I'm honestly wondering how the fuck that happened. 

But in non-academia related news, I'm having minor surgery at the end of this month: I'm finally getting my tubes tied, and since I'm getting it done through the V.A Hospital, I shouldn't have to pay a dime for it. They say it's a 15 minute out-patient procedure & that I'll be back on my feet within a matter of days. The only downside is that earlier in the month they had to remove my I.U.D, which was followed by a regiment of heavy antibiotics that seemed to do little more than make me sick and fuck me up. I'm fine now, but the odds are good they're going to put me back on them not long after the procedure.

But enough about my lady-bits, I wanted to take some time to show you fine people a bit of what I've been up to in what little free time I've had. Last year, I started work on a series of paintings using donated & discarded military uniforms. Mostly due to school, I've had to put off working on the project until a later date. I'm nowhere near done with this project, but lately I think I've made some pretty significant progress: And today, I'd like to share what I've made with the good people of the Internet.

Keep in mind, this series was made with an underlying theme of sexism, misogyny, and religious fundamentalism that I've experienced in the American military. 

Also, at present, none of these have been framed and they are not up for sale (yet.) I want to make enough that I can display them in a gallery setting before I decide how much I want to charge for them. I'm running out of some crucial supplies faster than the idea-machine that is my mind can keep up with, so if you happen to know where I can get more intact ACUs for cheap, please do let me know. More photos of my work can be seen on my Instagram. 

I haven't quite decided yet what title I want to give this one, but the message should be clear: They show you EXACTLY what they want you to see while trying to hide the things they DON'T.

What we see here are three figures: Two dead women, one of whom is being "displayed" in from of an old television set by a male wearing the uniform, who is trying to hide the body of the other woman from view of the audience (the TV.) During my time in the military, especially while deployed, I heard no end of condemnation of Iraqis treating their own women like shit, even stoning them to death for having beed raped. All the while barely acknowledging the creeping plague of violence and discrimination against women wearing our own uniform, ESPECIALLY rape. 

The male figure is pointing out the "tragedy" that is the dead woman in the niqab for all the public to see, while deliberately hiding both the dead female soldier (the nude figure in the Belleville boots & pro-mask, this will be a recurring theme in this series) AND the bloody knife behind his own back. It's the worst kind of bold-faced hypocrisy that I can think of: Condemning an entire group of people for comitting the exact same kind of violence and discrimination that you are, the only substantial difference is the clothing. 

Moving on...

I'm thinking of calling this one "S.H.A.R.P Training." I realize there's a bit of a shine coming from the right-hand side of the image, that was unavoidable.

S.H.A.R.P is an acronym for Sexual Harassment and Assault Reporting and Prevention: Indeed, the American military loves it's acronyms, they make what should be crucually important ideas and turn them into easily digestible little chunks to be processed quickly & efficiently. In my experience, though, the Army treats S.H.A.R.P training like a "politically correct" inconvenience. Many of my squamates, from my previous unit as well as others, report a similar reaction to the training overall; it's a fucking joke to these people.

Of the several figures in this painting, we see a male N.C.O (Non-Comissioned Officer, any enlisted soldier with a rank of Sergeant or higher) taking the dominant position in our feild of view, he's holding two female figures forcibly by their hair in front of a group of other soldiers. S.H.A.R.P training is typically the responsibility of an N.C.O, though in my experience I've seen lower-level comissioned officers administer it as well, and it's supposed to be conducted either on some sort of regular rotation OR after an incident is reported. 

In my experience and observation, as well as those of my squadmates, the general idea is your typical "No means no, Restricted vs Unrestricted Reports, 'Don't be THAT guy' blah blah blah" kind of speeches, sometimes accompanied by a Power-Point slideshow & sign-in roster. Only what will also happen, rather often actually, is a follow up with "Don't be that GIRL" tropes, full of nods at 'her reputation,'  'what you were wearing,' or 'drawing attention to yourself' etc... otherwise known as victim-blaming or slut-shaming: People think they're being fair, but this ACTUALLY creates an impression that if something DOES happen to someone, that the recipient is somehow to blame for their attackers' actions. In the context of assault & harassment in the military, I've always found the "what were you wearing" question especially ridiculous. I was assaulted & harassed by a male squadmate when I was depolyed to Iraq in 2011, I was wearing the uniform I was fucking issued when he forced his way into my room! 

Next piece...

I don't know what to call this one yet, either. The painting itself isn't very large, either: It's actual dimensions are 8 by 10 inches.

I wish I were joking or exaggerating about this, but ever since Basic Training in 2009 up until my last days in the Army (and occasionally, I still get this drivel forwarded to me via Facebook) I must have heard every single imaginable half-baked 'argument' about why people think women shouldn't be in the military, and I've repeatedly refuted EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. I get it, you don't want me here: Well I'm already here so either find a way to deal with it or kindly fuck right off.

The Army knows they need us, even if they don't actually WANT us. Type the term "Army FET Team" into Google and see for yourself where we are headed. Wether or not you like the idea, you CHOSE to join the military and the institution permits you to stay as long as you abide certain rules & standards. The military did not "choose" YOU, never forget that.

Moving on (and this next one's going to be a bit, how shall I put this... Georgia O'Keeffe)

Yes, that is EXACTLY what it looks like: A bold & brazen digi-cammo vulva, and I'm thinking of calling this one "Hooah" ;-)

Hey, you saw the Not Safe For Work tag in the title, otherwise you wouldn't have opened the link! We're all adults here, we should be able to discuss things like vagina paintings calmly and rationally, right? It would seem as if other 'grown adults' within the military don't seem to think so, for some strange reason. I promise you that I didn't paint this image for pure shock value, I have a reason (and a story) behind this. 

Of the many subjects we occasionally have to sit through briefings about, there are officially sanctioned health & safety presentations regarding sexually transmitted diseases: The Army has to do this because of parents who refuse to do their damn jobs and educate their own kids properly on the subject, then when they reach enlistment age they often catch S.T.D's like they were goddamn Pokemon. I'll never forget the very LAST briefing about sex & diseases that I ever had to sit through, it actually made me incredibly angry...

The woman they tasked to give this particular briefing couldn't have been that much older than ME, and I was 32 at the time: Supposedly, she worked with the Raymond W Bliss Hospital on post (Fort Huachuca, Arizona) but I must have been there thousands of times & I'd never seen her before. She has poofy house-wifey hair, a mauve sweater and wore "mom-jeans" that looked way too starched. She seemed relatively polite and sincere, especially when considering having to stand in a room full of strangers talking about infected genitalia, but she had this incredibly aggrivating habit that made me want to slap the shit out of her: She could name every single individual piece of MALE anatomy by their proper medical terms, but whenever she was presented with anything involving FEMALE anatomy, she'd give this stupid little shrug-and-giggle and only call it "Hoo-haa."

Both sets of Labia were the "Hoo-haa"

The clitoris was also a "Hoo-haa"

Pubis mons, vulva, urethra, etc = "Hoo-haa"

EVERYTHING biologically female (regarding this particular presentation, as the military STILL won't allow transgender soldiers regardless of wether or not they transition) was reduced to the level of jr high school snickering followed by the obligatory "Hoo-haa" as if this bitch wasn't grown enough to know what her own organs are, as if she was ashamed of being a fucking woman and had to let everyone else know it, too! And the REALLY irritating part of this, is that every time she did it, others in the audience would laugh. 

Seriously, bitch? What are you, goddamn 9 years old!? Did you only just recently pick up a copy of Grey's Anatomy and skim through it while glancing over your shoulder like a fucking CHILD?!?!?! Fuck you, you willfully ignorant Stepford escapee!

...

*deep breath, bong rip*

Yep, apparently not only is being a woman something to be embarassed about overall, but in the Army it is something to avoid openly asserting at any cost. Lest one becomes reduced to the subject of juvenile sneers or giggles it would behoove you to completely forget who you are.

And lastly, I'd like to bring you back to the beginning of this series...

THIS painting is actually twice as tall as it is wide, part of the reason why it didn't photograph terribly well. It's about a year old and I STILL have no idea what to title it.

What you (unfortunately) can't see in this photograph is her stepping nervously in poorly fitted Belleville boots, the idea was to create a feeling of fear and nervousness like she's being unwittingly exposed to a situation she might not have any control over. As I said earlier, there's a recurring theme of female figures in Bellevilles & pro-masks to signify that this figure is supposed to be a soldier, but not quite. I did this on purpose, here's why: In order for a figure to have an identity, they need to have a face. Having a face shows that you are a person, and a person has feelings and rights. Have you ever worn a pro-mask? It's awful, they smell weird and aren't easy to breathe through; I chose the pro-mask on these figures to demonstrate the "dehumanizing" element of sexism, especially sexual violence, against women in the military.

Once you step forward and make a report, or someone so much as notices you in the wrong context, the ensuing harassment and retaliation serves to strip you of your status as a human being and turn you into a 'thing' to be acted upon. You become an inconvenience, a walking meat-sack occupying otherwise an otherwise useful uniform. You identity ceases to be YOU and becomes what is dictated TO YOU or even UPON YOU, at least as far as THEY are concerned.

I hope you've enjoyed what I've shown you so far, there will be more work to come in the future.

Lament of a Liberal Atheist Iraq Veteran

So I’m thinking I might be DONE looking to forums like Facebook or G+ pages catered to Soldiers & Veterans, mostly Iraq & Afghanistan Vets like myself: I know, I know, it’s “social media” and anyone can use it, and I’ve long ago accepted that I can’t control what other people post. But, and it saddens me to admit this publicly, I’m starting to think that my fellow Veterans (mostly those who served in the Middle East like I did) are quite possibly the most easily brain-washed, closed minded & willfully ignorant people I’ve interacted with in recent memory.

OF COURSE THERE ARE GOING TO BE EXCEPTIONS, as at present this mostly seems to happen on forum pages instead of with other people I've served with (I can already see it, “#NotAllVeterans”)

It’s just that lately I’m seeing so goddamn many public military forums break down to Ad-Hom at the drop of a hat, often over minor disagreements like the Flag Code, women in combat, PT standards, many of them will blast each other over anything that upsets them in the slightest. These forums are becoming less and less about community support and camaraderie, as they seem to have all-out turned into social & intellectual war-zones in of themselves.

Fuck forbid you try to explain how and why the Consitution trumps the flag itself, that flag-bearing t-shirts and coffee mugs are also Flag Code violations that no one’s making a fuss about, suddenly everyone and their dog wants to call my Commanding Officer, my Battalion, or just straight up insult & threaten me (which is rare, but it DOES happen from time to time.) Fellow Soldiers also seem convinced that service in our military is somehow de-facto service to a Christian institution, which it is very much NOT: I even gave a pretty lengthy presentation about this very subject at the University of Arkansas earlier this year, but hey, what the fuck do I know, right? I'm just a godless communist because I took the time & spent the effort doing research on something that has directly impacted my military career AND my personal life (to be fair, they got the 'godless' part right) despite the facts happening to be terribly inconvenient, even for ME. Even on the pages made for & made by FEMALE TROOPS, I find rape apologism and internalized misogyny. What the actual fuck, OVER!?!? 

I don't rightly give a flying-lizard-clit who you are or what your rank is: If you're defending rape or shaming a victim, YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO THAT UNIFORM AND OUR COUNTRY.

So why do I think this is becoming a problem within our armed forces and surrounding communities? My answer is this: Shortsightedness, basically the reluctance or inability to think beyond the immediate consequences of one's own words or actions to the point that the very concept no longer being in the military completely escapes them. If you're an 11-Bang-Bang who doesn't want to have to serve with women, do you really honestly think that once you hang up that uniform the real world is going to continue to accomodate your willful ignorance? If you can't handle the thought of a woman in your convoy, how do you think you're going to handle having one as your supervisor at the office? If you can't stand the idea that one of your squad-mates might be gay, and have no issue letting them know this, about how well do you expect that to work when you eventually have to go work for a Fortune 500 company with a strict non-discrimination policy? 

Don't get me wrong, I served with a lot of Soldiers who were genuinely decent human beings. I also served with a lot of arrogant shit-heads who's undeserved rank patches on their ACU's are probably going to only ever be their greatest acheivement in their lives, people who are so full of themselves they're no longer fit to shovel shit from one pile to another. There's a term for this in the Army, they call it "Toxic Leadership," and boy-howdy was 40th ESB toxic! When a female E-6 tells you to your face that she hopes someone rapes you just so you learn a lesson, you know your entire Unit is shit. 

A lot of military personnel can't seem to grasp the concept of long-term consequence, that just because you're wearing a flag & uniform like a personal sheild doesn't mean your bad behavior won't follow you after you eventually hang it up & get your DD-214. I have, in my immediate possession, footage of a male E-6 physically striking another male PFC that I sincerely regret NOT releasing to the public; I'm thinking that at some point in the future, I should just go ahead and do it. Fuck it, why not? What are they going to do, come to my apartment and give me a stern talking-to? If they're willing to do anything to me, it'd be quite a bit more than what they did to admonish the soldier who forced his way into my room and physically/sexually assaulted me  in 2011 (and for THAT, they literally did nothing AT ALL.) Really, if cops can be made to wear body-cameras, then, situation depending, why not run-of-the-mill Soldiers? Since corruption, fundamentalism and violence seem so pervasive in military culture anyway, why not encourage Soldiers to film each other? 

Unless there's an immediate issue of security clearance, at present I'm unaware of any pressing reason why this would be impossible or impractical.

And honestly, I think I'm done trying to explain the "freedom" that we claim to defend to people who just aren't interested. If all it gets me is a lot of pissed-off theocrats and flag-fappers sending me nasty comments, then what is this really doing for me? I tried learning how to debate properly like a good atheist so that I could sucessfully challenge bad ideas with logic and reason, but some people just don't wanna hear it. They only want to hear their own opinions & biases echoed back to them, which I admit that I am guilty of from time to time: The difference is that I can disagree with people and still be friends with them, until they give me a concrete reason not to be anymore.

Final note, these are just my thoughts and opinions. I appreciate you taking time to hear me out on this, regardless of wether or not I'm right about any of it: I can only ever be myself, I don't expect or demand people to agree with everything I say.

So THIS Happened...

Upon becoming a student at the University of Arkansas, I was issued an e-mail address intended for academic use. I have every right to disperse this particular address to anyone that I'd like to, as it is STILL very much my private information. Yesterday, however, I got an e-mail that puzzled me: The Republican Party of Arkansas recently sent out an en-masse recruitment e-mail to University students, the trouble is that many of us have absolutely no idea how they got that information. They are not directly affiliated with the University, so by all accounts they SHOULDN'T have been able to access our e-mail. But for some reason, they DID, and many members of the local secular student RSO Occam's Razors seem to think that they may have obtained this information illegally. 

At the heart of it all, as far as the contents of the e-mail are concerned, it's not the pretentious & insincere "God Bless" that irks me about this: I'm greatly more concerned about how these people got my fucking e-mail address to begin with than what nonsense they actually sent me. Then I saw THIS PART...

The problem with sending out spam e-mail to an entire academic institution while including propaganda that marginalizes an entire group of people who disagree with you, is that you are probably going to hear back from the people that you marginalized about exactly WHY they disagree with you, and you have no reason to complain if a few of them sound rightly pissed off. If you have to resort to (possibly) breaking the law to send out recruitment spam for your cause, maybe you should at least consider NOT including nonsense that targets a specific demographic of people: ATHEISTS.

At least they were kind/foolish enough to include their organization's contact information in the thoughtless and completely unsolicited e-mail. I'm going to interpret that as "Hey, I know you didn't ask for us to send you this message that makes our position about how little regard we have for the rights of those of you that DON'T have an imaginary friend, so feel free to message us any-ol-time about absolutely anything!" THAT is either a gross oversight on their part, in which case SOMEONE needs to investigate the goings-on within their office lest they wind up in some serious shit in the future, or the Republican Party of Arkansas might (mind you, I said MIGHT) be completely okay with breaking the law for the sake of getting attention.

If that is genuinely the case, then I find it absolutely pathetic: It's one thing to disagree with people on things, it's quite another to violate rules & regulations for the sole sake of making your point. 

If YOU are a student who received this e-mail and DIDN'T want it, it might be a good idea to contact the University's Tech center and file a complaint. Complaints can also be taken up through the Federal Trade Commission: spam@uce.gov

Some have mentioned that if this were coming from the Democratic party, then this would never have become an issue. There are two problems that I have with that statement: First off, it assumes, without evidence, that someone from the Democratic Party INTENDS to do so (and since many of our members are ALREADY registered Democrats, it would be utterly silly of them to do so.) And second, even if, in the off chance, the en-masse harvesting of private information DOES turn out to be legal, it's still incredibly ignorant to send a message that endorses a message of "fuck these people, join us" and NOT expect them to respond.

And if you have to resort to (possibly) breaking the law to do your job, that is a plain and clear indicator that YOU SUCK AT IT.

14-Oct-2014 Update: After talking to a couple of outside sources, as well as hearing from someone at the University just today, apparently our University e-mail addresses are part of a public directory. So, strictly speaking, while what the Arkansas Republicans did turns out to be perfectly legal, it's still rather lame: For the same reason I don't like door-to-door missionaries or salesmen bothering me at home, I see enough political propaganda on my Facebook & Twitter feeds every day. I use my University e-mail for UNIVERSITY RELATED BUSINESS, that's the only thing I ever intend to use it for. It's not like anyone living in the entire State of Arkansas has never ever heard of the Republican (or Democratic) Party, there was no practical reason whatsoever for that to have been sent out in the first place.

To put it bluntly, if I WANT TO hear from a local or national political organization, I will attempt to make contact directly MYSELF. No one likes unsolicited spam, this shouldn't exactly be a difficult concept to grasp in the age of the Internet.

Critique: The UofAR "Teaching Religion"

I had the pleasure of attending a recent discussion event at the University of Arkansas here in Fayetteville. And yes, I say "pleasure" even though the event had it's pitfalls, it still had a measure of intrigue and remained surprisingly calm for an age of seemingly ever-rising tensions between different religious communities. I admit, I went to this event with some half-baked expectations and anticipation of some kind of a debate or a panel, I was hoping that this was going to be a bit more in-depth than the rather vaguely written event flyers had advertised. 

Still unsure about what exactly was supposed to go on at this thing, I made an attempt to acquire a bit more information. About a week before this event was held, I took a moment to approach Dr. Lucas Delezene (Biological Anthropologist and guest speaker, I'm in his Introduction to Anthropology class) to try to get a bit more information from him about this. Despite his enthusiasm for public discussion about science, at the time he didn't have much more information about the even than I did: It would seem that the event organizers wanted someone well qualified to discuss "teaching the controversy" (this will come up later, keep reading) and so they dropped this right into his lap. Even in lieu of having little more than the other participants' names for information, though, he seemed genuinely excited and optimistic about whatever the outcome would have been from this, and with a smile he recommended that I attend: Which I did, and the following is just a rudimentary break-down of everything that happened during the "talk."

Unfortunately, I was unable to catch the name of the first speaker: She did mention that her area of expertise was the history of Christianity during the early Middle Ages. 

During her portion of the talk, she showed the audience a brief power-point presentation about the history of Jesus as a historical figure: To include images taken from several different mosaics of everything from an asexual youth being baptised all the way to your typical bearded white guy images, just to demonstrate the fluidity of not only the image, but the "message." And even to my surprise, she threw in an image of an ancient Viking version of Jesus being crucified... to a tree. Not just any tree, the World Tree of old Norse legend. Kinda made me think and reflect on how people who peddle notions of "Absolute Truth" really have no idea what they are talking about, literally AND figuratively. Modern Christians would have had the historical Jesus arrested for vagrancy if they had seen him today, and that is assuming that a flesh-and-blood Jesus ever existed (which, to my dismay, I don't recall them discussing.) So yes, to a point religion DOES have a place in academia as objective subject matter and not as indoctrination: It's important that we understand that these myths are an important reminder of where we came from as a civilization, but also that there's a clear and present danger in looking fondly on "the good old days" as many modern fundamentalists seem so very eager to do. Apparently, last time they had an event like this one, one entire portion of the room was solidly "occupied" by a local Christian fundamentalist sect.

The second speaker at the event was Dr. Timothy Landry, a cultural anthropologist who had spent a great deal of time in West Africa & the Caribbean studying Voodoo. 

Before I begin this part, I'd like to point something out that annoyed me greatly about the entire event: All but two of the of the speakers seemed to have no concept or consideration for time whatsoever. So about five minutes after the first speaker's ten minutes were long done, Dr. Landry was finally able to proceed with his presentation. Straight of the bat, our eyes were bombarded with stock images of commonly known Voodoo practices such as dolls and animal sacrifice. And I say bombarded because these pictures were flashing and repeating at quite a rapid pace: Doll, blood, candles, bone, the word SATAN, a black woman wearing a headdress, a chicken, something on fire, the word EVIL, etc... you get the idea (It was actually pretty fucking metal.) Why did he do this? To prove a point about stereotypes. He continued about the "truths" in stereotyping people and cultures to be incomplete, an easy point to prove with such a stereotyped practice as Voodoo. Admit it, as soon as you saw the word Voodoo in this post, you chuckled at the thought of dolls and dead chickens. He proceeded to ask the general questions about what we, in the West, typically think about when we talk about anything pertaining to religion. What IS religion to us, really? I typically think of modern myth and folklore surrounding figures like Jesus, Mohammed and Tom Cruise, and laugh my ass off at how improbable and silly their ideas are.

But Dr. Landry didn't discuss "religion" in those familiar terms: As far as practitioners are concerned, Voodoo isn't a religion. If you trace the practice back far enough in history, the word "Voodoo" in of itself simply means "Spirit" guiding you along a path or providing instruction. There are no literal "God" figures in Voodoo, only other spirits and their own unique demands and practices. They don't exclude figures like Jesus or Buddha, they include them as more "spirits" that impart mortals with guidance and wisdom. Yes, they practice animal sacrifice in many of their rites, but I had no idea that the meat was to be shared among the participating community afterward (something that the Bible forbids, by the way {Acts 15:29}) But they don't get their rocks off spilling the blood of animals, not like some of us might tend to think of it, because they consider it an act of honor and love to do so: The guiding spirits, or Loa, get what they want and the community gets a sanctified meal afterward. Now I know what you're probably thinking right about now, "Eew! What a bunch of savages!" I'm sure they probably have some very interesting things to say about eating communion crackers or rolling around on the floor mumbling gibberish, A.K.A., "Speaking in Tongues."

And while religion, ANY religion, is not grounded in fact, it is really easy to caricaturize ideas that we don't understand and then use them to demonize an entire group of people: When I DO criticize Islam, I try to be really damn careful to distinguish between the ideas and beliefs from the people that hold honestly believe them. I enjoyed Dr. Landry's eye-opening talk very much, but as far as I'm concerned my usual policy of criticizing religious belief stands: People have rights, ideas do not. Therefore, no idea is above reproach or mockery, especially when it come to the evils and ignorance of their followers. THIS brings me to the next presenter... 

Dr. Lucas Delezene has been teaching the same Anthropology course (to include the one I'm currently taking) at the University of Arkansas for the last four years. 

Now I did mention earlier that "teaching the controversy" is going to pop up again in this blog post, I'll get to that shortly. Dr. Delezene's work in Anthropology has been very hands-on for most of his career, he's gone out on expeditions and digs in the American Southwest looking for ancient human remains: He's repeatedly noted that Arizona is one of his favorite places to work, especially the Grand Canyon area. His job, in terms of this "talk," is actually pretty simple: In terms of teaching the controversy is concerned, there really isn't one. If there's one lesson that EVERYONE can take out of the Nye vs Ham debate, it's that the matter of physical reality is not something that is this hotly "debated" controversial subject, like religious fundamentalists would have you think. What's real is real, and as scientists like Richard Dawkins have repeatedly pointed out, the scientific process helps us to discover and describe observable phenomena, something religion has failed to do with any measure of accuracy. Dr. Delezene briefly described a concept that I was only loosely familiar with, something called "Non-Overlapping Magisteria." That is, loosely, that science and religion are not necessarily in conflict because they are basically two very different things: Science deals in facts, whereas faith deals in values. Values are subjective and fluid, religious or otherwise: Facts are facts and that's that, pieces of one fantastic puzzle being assembled that we are coming to understand as REALITY.

The process of cognitive dissonance can be difficult, sometimes even painful, for students coming to the University from religious backgrounds and families. Having one's deeply held ideals and beliefs challenged is rarely a pleasant experience, and can be downright frightening for young people who aren't yet used to it. Out of about 2000 or so students that he's taught over the years, he said that only a handful of them were ever hostile toward him in this regard (He also noted that at least one of them later apologized to him over it.) Science and evolution are not magic, science doesn't aim to "prove" or "disprove" anything like theists seem to think, it is the method by which we test, observe and discover things about our world, our origins (hey, like evolution and anthropology!) and our universe. I don't recall if Dr. Delezene himself openly identifies as an atheist or a skeptic, I'd have asked him myself but it didn't seem appropriate at the time to do so. Regardless, he intricately and beautifully summarized religious "conflict" in regard to his own scientific and academic profession much better than I'm doing on my humble little blog.

There were quite a few people that got up and left not long after Dr. Delezene's presentation, I'm not entirely sure as to why this happened. I'm guessing, emphasis on GUESSING, that there were people in the audience who just wanted to see if he would just "blast creationist idiots" during his talk or not, to whatever end. Either way, the room suddenly felt much "larger" than it was when this whole thing began, and then the next presenter took the stage. 

Dr. Sidney Burris is one of, if not THE, senior chairmen of the Honors Program at the University of Arkansas, and he's aparrently spent a great deal of time studying Tibetan Buddhism in Northern India.

He's met the Dalai Lama at least once, and he talked a great deal about him. In fact, that's pretty much all he talked about for well over half of his presentation: The Dalai Lama and some of the stuff that he did. He mentioned Thich Nhat Hahn's writings a few times during the duration of his speech, but that's about the long-and-short of it. And this is right about where I started to get really annoyed with the entirety of this event, when Dr. Burris seemed to deviate so drastically from the commonly followed (and STILL aimless) format of this event: How does religious practice directly affect your ability to teach your respective area of expertise? Because a great deal of his presentation was talking about other people's work, mostly that of the Dalai Lama. Don't get me wrong, I learned a lot about Buddhism as a system of ideas, AND a lot about the Dalai Lama as a person, but I can't shake the notion that I could have just as easily learned all of this from YouTube: To include all of the popular Dalai Lama quotes that I can pull off of my Facebook and Twitter feeds at any given moment.

For real, that's all he did the entire time was talk about the Dalai Lama, and then proceeded to do so even after he had gone over his allotted time: Which, in retrospect, I probably could have forgiven if he had a point to make.

Understand that I intend no disrespect to Dr. Burris himself in my critique here, but damn dude: YOU are on the Honors Committee...?

Last but not least, Professor Jennifer Hoyer, who is an expert on Jewish culture and literature.

I'd like to say first, that I don't understand much about Judaism or Jewish culture: I was never formally brought up as a Jew, even though I am one according to my ancestry. This was part of Professor Hoyer's problem as well, teaching a subject matter so drastically unfamiliar to so many people. It saddens me to say that even I was a bit confused by her presentation, but that's not the least bit her fault: I am just as unfamiliar with Jewish terminology and practice as many of her incoming students are. What a unique predicament that must be, to not only be an expert in a subject matter that so many people don't understand because they've never been exposed to it, but having the task of trying to explain it to a room full of people. Well, there's ME sitting in the audience feeling the steaming breath of my own ignorance breathing down my neck, but I'm okay with admitting that publicly. There's A LOT that I don't know and don't understand, after this it would just seem that Jewish culture and literature are among those things. 

And that's kinda the point, really: It's hard to teach about a culture and it's literary accomplishments without establishing a proper context. Now I don't mean using "context" to justify carrying out atrocities, in this particular case I'm talking about written works like poetry, novels and stories. Public perceptions of Judaism often seem so "narrow," according to Professor Hoyer, that people often forget the thousands of years of discussion and dialogue around it and within it. According to Jewish tradition, each time the scriptures are read, they change in value and meaning according to the person reading it. In the sense that two people can look at the same peice of art and get two very different ideas from it, sure. Naturally, that doesn't make anything that any holy-book actally says the least bit true: But in terms of poetry, literature and art, that's hardly the point. Those things are all about culture and interpretation, they thrive on differing opinions. Maybe that's why I love religiously themed artwork even though I despise their doctrines. No one, to MY knowledge, ever suicide-bombed a crowded public market after visiting the Sistine Chapel.

IF the University ever holds an event like this in the future, despite this particular one not being terribly exciting overall, I'd still go.

Not only am I optimistic that maybe they can all agree on a common format or theme for which to discuss, but that there could perhaps be a little bit more engagement between the speakers themselves as well. True, the event was never advertised as a debate or discussion panel, but perhaps the error was mine in ASSUMING that it would be: I let myself down, in that respect. 

The entire event was polished off by a reception at the Inn at Carnall Hall here on campus: There was tasty cheese, awkward silences and a dude sitting two seats away from me that wouldn't shut up about the Columbine Massacre (and I still have no idea how he got on that topic.) 

I had my cheese, revised my notes from each presentation, and now here I am posting this entry several days too late as usual.

7-Oct-2014 Correction: It's been brought to my attention that one primary reason why many people left the talk after Dr. Delezene's presentation had nothing to do with anticipation or ideology, but due to time constraints and prior commitments: Largely brought on by the fact that the first speaker went WAY OVER her time, which presented some measure of inconvenience for others. At least for some, my "guess" turned out to be inaccurate. My apologies.

#FairFayetteville

I realize that this post is a bit late, today is quite literally my last chance to write it. Fall semester starts tomorrow morning, I'm probably not going to have ANY free time whatsoever until December (possibly, maybe) so I may as well get it out of my head while it's still somewhat fresh. As many of you may have heard recently, the Duggars are in some potential legal doo-doo, due to (see what I did there...) a series of robo-calls that were made to residents of Fayetteville Arkansas and the surrounding communities concerning a proposed anti-discrimination ordinance. The ordinance, which officially goes into effect in less than 30 days, would protect people living/working/shopping/studying within town boundaires from employment/housing/service/medical/etc discrimination based on race/sex/sexual orientation/national origin/disability/gender/gender identity (yes, there IS a difference between sex and gender.) The religious right-wingers in the Washington County area had their collective knickers in a twist because this VERY GENERAL ordinance includes protective measures for LGBT folks:

They're perfectly fine with screwing over black people and the handicapped, as long as they don't have to acknowledge 'them queers' as human beings. Fucking typical, man...

Ordinance 119 was, as far as I can tell, proposed earlier this year in the Fayettevile City Council. For some as-of-yet unknown reason, the local chapters of the Southern Baptist Convention decided that they didn't know what was going on (in the age of fucking Face-Book? Unlikely...) and that they were purposely being left out. Even if that were true in the least, they did a massive call-around to their conservative base and started bussing people into the Town Hall, many of whom wearing (you're gonna love this) PURPLE SHIRTS. I just love the irony of a bunch of homophobes gathering in the same place wearing one of the traditionally "gayest" colors that there is. 

The meeting itself was utterly MASSIVE (I'm in the front row of picture #10, wearing a black hat) and at present the longest running City Council meeting in Fayetteville's entire history: 10+ hours! That was just over ten hours of people getting up behind a single podium, one by one, talking about wether or not they were for or against the ordinance in question or their proposed amendments. They let anyone who wanted to talk do so, and I DO MEAN ANYONE: Even the handful of Bible-bumping nutters that threatened Mayor Jordan and the members of Council with "God's judgement." I wish I were joking, but a few of the purple-shirts ACTUALLY did this! They got up in front of a room full of complete strangers, started going off about some Bible-babble and then whipped out the fire-and-brimstone bullshit. I love the Democratic process, don't get me wrong, but fucking-hell man... Some people just shouldn't talk, like, AT ALL.

To include THIS guy, whom prior to the meeting went around the lobby of the town hall and started calling people "pervert," "homo," "sinner," he even (according to witnesses) approached a lesbian couple and started rattling off some particularly hateful bullshit to THEM AND THEIR SON. He was over-heard saying that LGBT folks don't have any rights under the Constitution, and I had to stop him as soon as the words "most Veterans would agree" dribbled out of his disgusting mouth: I showed him my dog-tags and told him I wasn't about to be dragged into his nonsense, he proceeded to threaten me with hellfire & brimstone, then called me a "traitor against America" and an "enemy of the State." Coming from YOU, you flag-fapping bastard, I take that as a compliment. I never got his name, but I'm pretty sure I heard him identify himself as a member of some Baptist church here in Fayetteville, also working for Veteran's Memorial... something, I didn't catch the last bit.

 Those of us in red shirts, people who are FOR the ordinance, not only greatly outnumbered the opposition, but I honestly think we had a lot more qualified experts in their respective fields on our side, too: Not just members of clergy (Two from the local Episcopal church and one Unitarian Universalist) but also a couple of licensed psychologists, the main administrator of the local Rape Crisis Center, the Omni Center, the North West Arkansas Center for Equality, and literally HUNDREDS OF RED-SHIRTS showed up to show their support for the ordinance. Though I should point out, unfortunately, that despite the record attendance not everyone was given the opportunity to speak at the meeting. There were just too many people there. 

See, folks? The South isn't COMPLETELY backward. I love Fayetteville ^_^

Even I got up and spoke briefly, but I think I stuttered a lot (it's so easy to rehearse everything you want to say in your own head, then when it's YOUR TURN at the podium you freeze up like a sheep in Scotland.) Basically, the only NON-religious argument that the opposition was trying to use revolved around putting the ordinance up for a public vote in November. That was it, everything else was regurgitated nonsense their Pastors probably told them to say or what I can only aptly describe as grossly exaggerated "child-rape fantasies" about what will happen if transgender people are allowed to use public restrooms. Oi-fucking-vey, THAT'S IT? THAT'S ALL YOU'VE GOT?!?!? I had to say something about it, especially since they were still conjuring images of "State-licensed-child-rape-by-trannies" well AFTER the Rape Crisis Center administrator laid out the hard facts (with sources cited) about sexual assault and who likely perpetrators ACTUALLY tend to be (oh hey, what'd'y'know, many of them are CLERGY!!!) Nope, child-rape. And Jesus. That was pretty much all they went on about for 10+ HOURS!

The Council eventually voted to pass the ordinance 6-2, the meeting ended at 3:30-ish in the morning: Mayor Jordan was especially moved by the overwhelming testimony of residents of Fayetteville. 

There are FCC complaints being filed against the Duggars for the robo-calls, which are illegal in Fayetteville without the necessary permits. But with THIS now coming to the surface, that will be the least of their worries. I personally will be drafting a letter to The Learning Channel voicing my concern and outrage that they endorse this kind of bigoted bullshit, yeah they'll probably ignore me but I feel like I have to do SOMETHING. The right wingers have already started their jowell-waggling "this isn't over" tyrade, but then again, when AREN'T they upset about something? 

I'll do my best to keep posted as often as my curent class schedule will permit me to: I don't want to make any promises that I might not be able to keep.

Just let me know when Round Two begins, I'm SO THERE!