Gays In The Military - "Going The Way of Greece"

Boy, Do I Wish...

What a firestorm!! Sixty Minutes airs a segment on gays in the military and within minutes, over 1300 comments online about the piece. Let's look at a few:

"Pandering to homosexuals is a disgrace and it weakens the moral fiber of this country. However, it doesn't surprise me any more that our courts and the law in general are growing more and more subservient. We are doomed to go the way Greece did."

Let's see... Greece gave us democracy, architecture, western culture, art, mathematics, philosophy. It still remains the most imitated culture in the world. The Romans cherished it. The Hebrews took advantage of it. The Egyptians benefited by it. If we're doomed to go the way Greece did, then I say we'll have a proud time until Armaggedon!

I was somewhat openly gay with my squadron the in Air Force. It was the toughest, most depressing, 6.5 years of my life!...I was great at my job! But after a while, I got tired of the hillbillies that were supposed to protect me, and our nation. Instead of attacking gay personnel,.. lets attack fellow military rapists, alcoholics, drug users, domestic abuse, men and women who cheat on each other with fellow co-workers, divorces, or high ranking personal using food stamps..."

I'm glad you had the courage to stick to it for 6.5 years. Most people wouldn't. But then, most people wouldn't think that a gay person would be all that patriotic and willing to serve their country.

"It's good to hear some common sense dude such as Duncan Hunter. What he said makes perfect sense. I wish there were more politicians like him. Having gays in the military or anything with such a despicable moral and sexual activity would definitely have a negative impact. I think there would be less soldiers willing to join when you are forced to "bond" with such practicers of immorality. All the sexual diseases these "gays" bring to the world..bhhhh.. And before you accuse me of being a racist or whatever let me say I am also a sinner but my goal is to stop sinning and not have others see my sins as something normal."

You could stop sinning by simply shutting up. The more homophobic people get, the more illiterate they become. Why is that? Is it simply lack of education or something in the genes? If it is, then let's hope the next one NEVER produces any children:

"So what's wrong with being gay? take the morality out of it and you will see it's a very unnatural activity. Your @#$% was designed for pushing the s--t out of it not for having it push up. When the gays do it with each other they insert s--t up the @#$% with a lot of toxins which destroy your body. Now don't tell me that having someone else's faeces pushed agains one's @#$% is a desirable activity one which produces no problems. very, very unsanitary."

This guy is certainly into bodily functions! It may come from frequenting too many public restrooms. He may even be a toe-tapper!

1372 comments within two hours. There should be a lot of material by morning to write about!

Greek Princess Barbie - Alas, about as close to Greece as we'll ever be!

And now's as good a time as any for a tribute to Sgt. Len Matlovich:

Who (or What) Will Be The Pied Piper This Year? Same-Sex Marriage or Iraq?

Or the Economy? Or Abortion? Or Terrorism?
Or the Gas Crisis?

The legend of the Pied Piper is supposedly based on fact. On this day in the year 1284, the German town of Hamelin employed a "ratcatcher" to rid it from an infestation of rats. When the rats were disposed of, however, the town renegged on its fee. Some 130 children were then entranced by the piper and followed him to a mountain where they all disappeared except for one lame boy who could not keep up with the Piper and his happy, dancing little troop. The oldest "evidence" of this event was a stained glass window in Hamelin's church depicting the Piper surounded by children. The actual window has been lost since 1660. The city accounts and reports, however, start in the year 1284. Whatever the cause, a catastrophic event happened to a number of children that year.

Since then, a pied piper has come to mean a person who can mesmerize a group of people and lead them to some fate (good or bad). Kind of like Jesus Christ, but instead of a flute, there's an ignominious crucifix(ion). Updated, some televangelists are pied pipers. In some instances, a pied piper can lead a congregation to heaven or, in some cases, to hell. The piper would, in the latter case, be Satan, yet his followers look upon him as a god.

There are secular and religious charismatic personalities today who can can command legions with their rhetoric. The tunes (rhetoric) can be as different as going forward ...and going backward in worldviews. The tunes can be issued from a podium, a town square or a pulpit. The piper can appeal to the old or to the young. He can make his pipe sound shrill or elegantly soft.


In the case of the pipe and its song, they encapsulate an idea or situation.

And this is where things get more complex: competing ideologies are put in order with the top one becoming the lure. The chief tune that comes out may make hordes of people sing and dance, make them angry or make them fearful.

The Katrina White House

But whatever way they react, it's the way the piper hopes they will react that matters.

I stated that the fate of the followers can be good or bad. Being a piper is not necessarily a bad thing. It is the pipe and its tune that people must pay attention to. In a sense, the piper himself is not as important as the pipe. People being how they are, however, fuse (and confuse) the piper with the pipe and its song.

O.K., let's get out of this metaphor and into reality.

Polls show that the most important things to voters this election year are: the economy, Iraq, healthcare and immigration reform. Secondary are the environment, same-sex marriage, abortion rights and separation of church and state. It is easy to see why the American public places the first four ahead of the second four: they're more immediate and tangible, therefore, more relevant to survival. America always look at the quick fix first. It's a human trait, especially if the problems in front of you hit you more immediately.

Our last decade has been one hell of a roller coaster ride: in 1998, our economy was booming and dot coms were raking in the money even before they went public. "Venture capital" was on everyone's lips. Then came weird events catastrophes: it took almost three agonizing months before we knew who was our next president, the dot coms went broke and we were headed for recession, then 9/11 happened to shock the world. Talk of war and WMDs, Saddam Hussein, rising oil prices put fear into the hearts that, just a few years before had been filled with hope and elation. We went to war with the hope that it would be short. Foreign countries that had mourned for us after 9/11 now were afraid of us. We were a "rogue nation" that couldn't be trusted. We had the sinking feeling that Iraq "liberation" would lead to civil war - almost anarchy - and our feeling was right. And while the war against terrorism and insurgency dragged on, we finally noticed how our own political and social infrastructure had deteriorated: we were in our own civil war, but we called it a "culture war": people were fighting for rights: the right to life, the right to marry, the right to regulate reproduction, the right to immigrate.

So now we're at this point: in recession, escalating war costs, climbing national debt, global warming, soaring medical costs, increased hate crimes and people pointing fingers in all directions, socially, morally, financially.

When we grab on to our pied pipers, we'll grab on hard and fast, we won't look in what direction we're going nor will we care: the music will be too soothing, too "right" for us. The music will lull us with its security. We will not even look back at where we were or who caused all the old problems.

History will be dead.

P.S.:

But let's face it: the only TRUE Pied Piper we've ever really experienced is a cinematic figure, a wonderful pastiche of a personality that exudes LIFE in capital letters: Auntie Mame. Here's a marvelous montage with the song Life's What You Make It sung by the popular Hanna Montana.

Michael Jackson's Front Gate

Michael Jackson's Front Gate
Originally uploaded by TunnelBug

This is exactly what tomorrow's post will be about, but a little more political. Just who do you think is this year's Pied Piper? We're all a little awed and overcome by Bible thumpers, celebrities and politicians. We may even be hypnotized by a song, a phrase, a lie. And like little children ...we trust. No, not trust, we simply believe. Because we're willing to believe. We want to believe with all our hearts that what's being said and done is true. We're skeptical, but sometimes about the wrong things or it may be that we're not skeptical enough about the right things. We've been lied to, but we have an incredible capacity for forgiveness. Forgiveness may be our downfall, but we feel so self-righteous when we do it. And if we blame ourselves for believing, will be woefully after the fact. This willingness, this craving to believe may just be our greatest curse the one that makes fools of us all.

Strom Thurmond is Dead, But Hypocrisy Still Reigns Supreme!

Six Degrees of Segregation

To Christofascists: Resurrect Christ,
Not Strom Thurmond!

Letter to a Christofascist Nation:

Tradition is a wonderful thing. We in America have it in abundance: Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Martin Luther King Day (the last we wouldn't have if the KKK had their way). Today is the anniversary of the death of Senator Strom Thurmond (R-SC).

Please don't try to make it a national holiday. Strom Thurmond stood for a lot of things (including the longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator - 24 hour and 18 minutes - in order to stop the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957), but mostly Thurmond stood for, in fact, was the embodiment of hypocrisy.

• Thurmond fathered an illegitimate child by an African American maid. While he supported the child for a good number of years, he never acknowledged the relationship.
• Thurmond was an ardent supporter of segregation. So much so, that he turned Republican.
• Supporters point to the fact that Thurmond, even in later years, never missed a vote on the Senate floor. What they don't always emphasize is that he purposely turned off his hearing aid before each session.
• Whilst alive, it is believed that Thurmond knew of the relationship between him and activist Al Sharpton - Sharpton's ancestors may well have been slaves of Thurmond's family.
• What does it say about a state who votes for a Senator well over 90 years old? South Carolina obviously had a desperate need to get into the Guinness Book of World Records! The only use of his historic age will be to point to John McCain and say, "See, he's not THAT old!"
• Trent Lott needed to resign for even insinuating that if Thurmond had become president, segregation might still exist, hence, "we wouldn't have the problems we have now."

Republicans and Christofascists: be content that you have no one like Strom Thurmond anymore in your midst. If you dare to resurrect him through any other politician, blood will be on your hands!

Cheney, Bush and Trent Lott came to his 100th birthday to help, prop him up.