Thoughts on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

So, the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy (wherein they kick people out of the armed services if they find out they’re gay) has been in the news lately. Well, it’s been in the liberal news lately, because President Obama has failed to repeal the policy like he promised to in the campaign. Not exactly the first broken promise that has the left in an uproar, but you won’t hear about any of them on Fox News. It might interfere with their “he’s a rotten commie socialist that’s ruining the country” theory if their viewers were to somehow notice that ideologically the guy seems to fall somewhere between Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.

But anyway, all the coverage has got me thinking.

For instance, why is it that so many of the people kicked out have been Arabic translators? That’s where this new round of outrage originated. Apparently a whole shitload of Arabic-speaking interpreters have been kicked out of the military (for being gay, please try to keep up) just when we really need them to read those intercepted messages to us. Now I agree that that’s a pretty boneheaded thing to do, but I just can’t figure out what the connection is between gayness and speaking Arabic. Was it some crazy trend that swept through the gay community in the early 90′s? Were all the gay clubs having wacky Arabian theme nights or something? Or is it just that gay native speakers tend to get the fuck out of the backwards little theocracies they were born into? Probably a wise move if they did. Maybe I figured this one out.

But interpreters aside, isn’t this an incredibly easy way to get out of the Army/Air Force/Marines/Navy (OK, maybe not the Navy)? I mean suppose you’re about to go on your 4th tour in Iraq or Afghanistan, and you’re really fucking sick of of shitty food, sand in your asscrack, and being shot at. Can’t you just go to your commanding officer and say, “Sorry, but I’m not gonna be able to ship out. See, turns out I’m gay.”

And what if you do do that? Do they start processing the paperwork to throw you out right away? And what if they don’t believe you? I figure the conversation goes something like this:

Soldier: Sir, I’m not going to be able to ship out. You see, I’m gay.

CO: Aw bullshit, you just don’t want to do another tour. You’re always bitching about the shitty food, sand in your asscrack and being shot at.

Soldier: No sir, I love the Army. But not as much as I love cock.

CO: You have a wife and kids at home!

Soldier: I was in denial, sir. I didn’t realize I was hopelessly gay until showering with the other guys in the barracks.

CO: Mr. Crawford, get in here!

(A man in civilian clothes enters the room and drops his pants.)

CO: Alright, if you’re so gay, suck this man’s dick.

So what do you do if you’re a straight guy trying to get out of the military? Do you suck Mr. Crawford’s dick? I’m guessing you do. Sucking one dick to get out of the army doesn’t make you gay, it makes you a fucking pragmatist.

Thing is, Mr. Crawford has to be a civilian contractor, or else he’d get thrown out of the army too, because last time I checked getting blown by a dude was pretty gay. Maybe that’s why we’re spending so much money on contractors, because we have to keep a guy on every base willing to have his dick sucked by soldiers of questionable homosexuality. Waste of money if you ask me. I’m sure there’s guys at KBR who would do the job for free.

Now on the other side of this already convoluted coin (I’m not sure what that means either) we have the gay soldiers who want nothing more than to serve their country in the military. In a time when most people don’t want to be in the army, they’re upset about being forced out.

But here’s the catch: Christians and right-wingers (redundant, I know) think that gayness can be cured. Some of them have even said, “Being gay is a choice.” This makes me wonder if they came to this conclusion because they want to fuck members of their own sex but choose not to. That would explain a lot about most of them.

So if you’re a member of the armed services and somehow it comes out (pardon the expression) that you’re gay, couldn’t you just say you’re not gay anymore? I figure it would go like this:

CO: Sorry soldier, it says here you’re gay. I’m afraid you’re being discharged.

Soldier: No sir, that was last week. I’m straight now.

CO: What are you talking about?

Soldier: I was reading The Bible, I asked Jesus to make me not gay, and he did.

CO: Miss Conway, get in here!

Now of course we wonder does the gay man wolf down the pussy to get out of the army? But the gay man has an advantage here. Just because Jesus made him not gay doesn’t mean Jesus made him straight. Jesus could have made him asexual, and that should be fine with the US Army. Far as I know they don’t have any rules that say you have to be a heterosexual, only that you can’t be a homosexual.

So there you go. You want out of the army? Say you’re gay. You’re gay and want to stay in the army? Jesus made you asexual. What could be simpler?

Happy Easter

Let’s not forget where those eggs have been.

I wonder what prompted this.

A Little Less Detail, Danny

I’ve got kids in grade school, so this week was spent preparing for their classes Valentine’s Day celebrations. The only things that have changed since I was a kid is that these days they hand out candy with the little paper valentines, and there’s more Pokemon valentines than there are Star Wars valentines.

But anyway, my oldest son, who is nine, was working on decorating his valentine box. I think a video card from newegg.com came in it originally, but with the addition of a strategically placed rectangular hole, it became a receptacle for little paper valentine cards. And he was decorating it with Pokemon, Spongebob, and other decidedly non-Valentine’s Day related stuff.

So I said, “Why not put a heart on there for Valentine’s Day?”

He goes to work and I hear giggling, so I look over and notice that the heart he drew also had a sword piercing it.

I said, “What, no blood dripping from the sword?” This turned out to be a great suggestion, and soon there were little drops of blood dripping from the tip of the blade and pooling below.

But then he started to erase the blood and told me, “That’s probably a little too much detail.”

I agreed that it might be.

Then he said, “My teacher told me not to draw things so detailed.”

“Oh? When did she tell you that?”

“At Halloween. She told us to draw monsters and I drew a zombie.”

“And your zombie was too detailed?”

“Yeah. I drew him taking a bite out of a brain and there was blood squirting out of it.”

“Squirting out of the brain?”

“Uh huh.”

“Yeah, that might’ve been a bit too detailed. Did you change it?”

“Yeah. I just made him holding the brain. He wasn’t biting it and there was no blood.”

“And the teacher said that was OK?”

“Yup.”

Sometimes it’s great to be a father.

Merry Christmas

I’m Just Sittin’ Here Watchin’ The Weevils Get Caught and Drown

So a little over a year ago, we moved out into the country. There’s bugs out here, and we get the usual spiders and crickets and whatnot, but both summers we’ve been here we’ve had big problems with these little tiny gray bastards that get inside and crawl everywhere. They look kind of like pot seeds with antennae and legs. After much research I eventually figured out that they were imported longhorn weevils (calomycterus setarious), which as I understand it were unintentionally brought over from Japan (which I guess explains their love of manga).

Now I try to pretend I’m enlightened and respect all life, but the truth is I’m just lazy. They don’t fly or jump, they don’t bite, and they don’t carry any diseases. Mrs. FatDave does a good job keeping them out of the kitchen, so I tend to not care too much about them unless they invade my personal space.

And this has started to become a problem. My wife may sweep them out of the kitchen, but my office is my problem. Anybody whose ever seen my office knows that I’m not the fastidious type. In fact I’m the opposite of fastidious. What’s that called again? Oh yes–slovenly.

So I’m pretty sure there’s a fair number of weevils crawling around in my office, and this is evidenced by the fact that they often launch organized assaults on my Diet Coke cans. See, nothing seems to attract these little assholes like moisture, and I’ve nearly always got a cold Diet Coke within easy reach, and it tends to sit on the corner of my desk sweating which inevitably brings around the weevils.

At first I was a little squeaminsh about killing them, and I’d pick them up in a kleenex and crush them. But now I just smash them with a bare finger, which elicits a satisfying crunch. Mahavira would not approve.

But at certain times of day (roughly 3AM) it seems like the weevils get extra active, and defending my soda was requiring more attention. A better solution was required (I’m not being paid too little to kill weevils all night, after all). Luckily, I was able to come up with one.

As of yesterday, on the corner of my desk, sits a small plate full of water. In the middle of the plate is an empty mason jar on which I set my pop can. The mason jar used to hold my pens, but my children always seem to have a higher purpose for those, so the jar was sitting empty awaiting its true destiny. Now there is no way for a little crawly thing to get to the pop can without crossing water, and as it turns out imported longhorn weevils are horrible swimmers. Essentially, what I’ve done is to build a moat around my pop can, and it has worked wonderfully.

Of course as I was building my weevil trap, some experimentation was needed. I had to determine whether or not weevils could swim, so I poured water into the plate and waited for a vollunteer. Soon I had two; one very small and one quite large. I debated about which would make the better test subject (the smaller may not break the water’s surface tension, but the large one may be more buoyant), but I couldn’t make up my mind. Eventually I just decided to choose the lesser of two weevils.

What Really Happened to John McCain?

Those of us who didn’t just surface from a subterranean fallout shelter know that there are two John McCains. The circa 2000 John McCain was the “Maverick” John McCain (because apparently he was the legend of the west). While technically a republican, most republicans bitched about him and democrats considered him to be one of the few tolerable ones.

Then, ’round about 2005 or so, John McCain changed. Right when he should have been distancing himself from Bush, he started laboriously tonguing his ass crack. Religious nuts Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who he had previously criticized, suddenly became his pals. The Bush tax cuts he voted against were suddenly a good idea.

There were many theories as to why this sudden change occurred. Some thought it was just pandering to the party base for his inevitable 2008 presidential run. Others thought a specific deal had actually been struck, i.e. Karl Rove as his campaign strategist in exchange for continuous public blow-jobs given to Bush.

But I think I’ve finally figured out what happened, as evidenced by the following picture.

This post was inspired by this thread on democraticunderground.com. The McCain picture used was supplied by user Chulanowa.