this is hilarious.

this.

no posts this week.

papa's got a headache.

the deed of doubt.

Ever since i wrote the post extolling the phrase 'no good deed goes unpunished,' i have been keeping an eye out, ear to the ground, and nose to the grindstone for a good example of said phrase, even if only two of those actions make any sense in this context. (actually, i guess i could have kept my nose to the grindstone in or while looking for a good example; just not for a good example. i digress...)

anyhoo, the example came two nights ago. i had ordered dinner from five spot: specifically, a fried chicken po' boy, a side of rice and beans, and a couple of cokes.

when the delivery guy showed up at my door, he announced my tab: something like $13. thing is, i had been expecting a bill closer to the high teens (like $17), so i asked if i could see the actual receipt for the order, which the dude was holding. i wanted to verify the amount to make sure i wasnt shortchanging the delivery guy and restaurant. i figured the guy might have glanced at the wrong number on the receipt, or possibly had the wrong receipt with him.

as i looked the bill over, it was clear what had happened. i had asked for a large rice and beans, but had been given a small; hence, the price discrepancy.

understanding what had happened, and content to have a small order of rice and beans rather than a large, i handed the receipt back to the deliverer. to which he responded, 'what - did you think i was trying to steal from you?' he did not say this in a joking manner. not at all.

to which i responded, 'no - actually, i thought the bill would be higher.' i handed him payment, including a three-dollar tip, and shut the door, miffed that my desire to not underpay had ended up sparking an uncomfortable, suspicion-laden exchange between a stranger and me. i have a hard enough time making small talk with strangers; i cant help but always feel a little uncomfortable. this exchange, though it lasted no more than ten seconds, was massively uncomfortable. my good deed had gotten its just punishment.

whoomp there it is.

btw, i had actually previously posted about a no good deed... incident in my transit strike diary. (check the 9.03 entry).

quote 4.

There's nothing in a world where the melody is broken. There's always some way to make a silence be spoken.

-Hot Chip, The Warning, from The Warning

(btw, isnt it interesting that some people will be able to read that quote simply as prose, while some will be unable to read it without the melody in their head? [and that's fitting for this particular quote, no?] i am firmly in the latter camp. no matter how hard i try, i cant get past the word broken without my mind's narrative voice turning singsong.)

murph and me.

There's no way to prove this. but im positive that the reason i didnt have to buy a new metrocard this morning has less to do with the fact that the current card's 30-day term must have not yet expired, than it does with the fact that i wasnt in a rush to catch an imminent train.

there's prolly a more succinct way of communicating that thought, but i cant think of it. right now.

escape the plague of corn syrup.

This coke is bound to taste better, no matter if i drink it out of the can or bottle . (if it exists in can form, that is.) i cant wait to stock up!

and, who would've thought that the religion i was born into, and my actual interests, might actually find some mutually beneficial overlap?!

quote 3.

This post, short and sweet, is lovingly dedicated to new friend KT.

Atran is a sociable man with sharp hazel eyes, who sparks provocative conversations the way other men pick bar fights.

-Robin Marantz Henig, Darwin's God, from The New York Times Magazine

gay it aint so.

Sometimes i find a thing i want to blog about, and sometimes it finds me. this is one of those times.

speaking of the times, yesterday i read, in the gray lady, that general peter pace, chairman of the joint chiefs - no less than our highest ranking military officer - thinks homosexuality is immoral, and he supports current Pentagon policy that prohibits openly gay people from serving in the armed forces. (shoot! since i began writing this post, i see the times has banished the article to its 'times select' archive. possibly b/c the article is gay; i cant be sure. no prob; you can read about pace's remarks on good 'ol wikipedia.)

ah - where do i begin?

i'll start with the 'immorality' pace speaks of. i got another i word for him: idiot. id say ignoramus as well, but i reserve that label for the homophobes who haven't had the experience or education to know any better. but a man who's ascended to such heights of power, who's no doubt received a first-class education in the course of his career and training, and who's no doubt traveled the world over multiple times? for this dude to be so narrow-minded - that's frightening. that's idiocy, pure and true. i mean, look at this comment from the general, in the same article:

"I believe that military members who sleep with other military members’ wives are immoral in their conduct, and that we should not tolerate that. I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral, and that we should not condone immoral acts."

are you kidding me? this dude cant differentiate between adultery and consenting sex between two men? i honestly cant believe he's able to dress himself in the morning, let alone command our armed forces. pace backtracked from that comment, saying he "should have focused more on [his] support of the policy and less on [his] personal moral views."

that's grand. i mean, if he was any more magnanimous, hed be ghandi.

kudos to senator john warner (r-VA), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and a former military man himself, for calling out pace: “I respectfully, but strongly, disagree with the chairman’s view that homosexuality is immoral.”

--

okay, done with that. now, on to the dont ask, dont tell 'policy' that our military still operates under - the policy which keeps openly gay people from serving, and spurred this michigoss.

here's my take on this policy: it is, perhaps, the dumbest, most nonsensical concept ive ever heard of. it's not strategy; it's pure homophobia.

let's examine, through the microscope of the most common reason people give for supporting the policy: heterosexual troops, forced to live and sleep and shower and whatnot in the company of homosexuals, would/will feel sexually threatened by them, or at least generally uncomfortable in their presence.

this is patent nonsense.

for one thing, there have been gays serving in the military for time immemorial. that's just a fact of life; there are gay people in every professional sector (after all, around 3-6% of the US adult male population is homosexual; that's more than enough to 'infiltrate' every niche). and surely, as the wikipedia article on 'dont ask, dont tell' - linked to above - tells us, there have been plenty of cases of gay dudes disrupting, intentionally or not, the sqauds they served with. but no more so than any other group you could gerrymander out of the army. i dont need to look it up to be sure that just as many jews, blacks, people with green eyes, peeps with red hair, and guys from the state of illinois have, historically, caused a similar amount of trouble. the pt is, there is no evidence that homosexuals have caused any more trouble serving in the armed forces than any other group. so empirically, the policy doesnt hold up.

but im more vehement about how the policy doesn't hold up philisophically. there are two basic prongs to this argument.

the first one deals with the idea that heterosexual troops, as i said above, will feel uncomfortable around openly gay men/women. (proponents of this argument often say something akin to: 'there's a reason men and women dont bunk together in the military, and the same reason carries over for gays.') puh-leeze. to me, the bottom line is that if some soldier feels uncomfortable showering in front of a gay dude, then HOW THE HELL IS HE GONNA HOLD UP STANDING BEFORE A BARRAGE OF BULLETS AND BOMBS ON THE BATTLEFIELD? IF HIS SKIN ISNT THICK ENOUGH FOR THE FORMER SITUATION, HE HAS NO BUSINESS BEING IN THE LATTER SITUATION. i mean, c'mon.

no doubt, similar arguments used to be used to support separating black troops from white troops.

the second prong more or less overlaps the first; if a homosexual wants to go stand in front of a hail of bullets, i think he should be more than welcome to do so, b/c I, FOR ONE, DO NOT WANT TO RISK MY LIFE ON THE BATTLEFIELD! i understand we need people in the army. but im not going. if gabriel and adrian want to go, im not gonna stand in their way. pardon the pun, but id say to them, before they signed up: go nuts!

this is particularly relevant right now, when our military is stretched so thin. according to the times article: "Since the policy was enacted and through the 2005 fiscal year, 9,488 service members have been dropped from the military under it, according to government statistics." that's almost ten thousand troops! that's half of bush's 'surge' right there! the military is desperate for people to sign up, but it's precluding an entire segment of the population? does that make any sense?

if you're gay, general pace can do without you sacrificing for your country. he's a great leader, but he cant just go and lead ALL types of people, now, can he? that's asking too much. he's only the highest ranking man in the armed forces, not some kind of superman.

lastly, who knows what kind of super-soldier the military might be denying itself, by virtue of the policy? it could be missing out on the next alexander the great, for chrissakes!

(while our conception of 'homosexuality' did not exist during his time, there can be no doubt that had he lived during our time, and carried on the relationships with men that he did back then, alexander the great would be considered a homosexual (or at least bi-curious).

anyway, you dont have to take my rambling logic for all this. from the article:

"In an Op-Ed article published by The New York Times on Jan. 2, General (John M.) Shalikashvili (chairman of the Joint Chiefs when the policy was adopted) wrote that conversations with gay soldiers and marines had showed him “that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers.”

“I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces,” General Shalikashvili wrote. “Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job."

now there's a thoughtful human being. former secretary of defense bill cohen agrees.

again, not allowing openly gay people in the military is not strategy; it's homophobia. and it's disgusting.

perhaps my favorite expression.

i dont know if i agree with the explanation for it given here, but my favorite expression, perhaps, is no good deed goes unpunished.

it seems like half the time you try to do something helpful for someone, it somehow blows up in your face. im not thinking of anything specific from my life right now; i just heard someone recount a situation that brought the phrase to mind. when it fits, it's a golden expression.

quote 2.

Both described at the same time how it was always March there and always Monday, and then they understood that José Arcadio Buendía was not as crazy as the family said, but that he was the only one who had enough lucidity to sense the truth of the fact that time also stumbled and had accidents and could therefore splinter and leave an eternalized fragment in a room.


-Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

weather or not.

from weather.com

there is one aspect of modern weather reporting that i find highly annoying. it's this 'feels like' addition to the stating of the current temperature ('39º, feels like 33º').

look - just tell me the weather. i'll decide how i want to feel about it.

meanwhile, im waiting for the natural extension of this practice: 'it's cloudy out there, but you're gonna be in a sunny mood.'

ah, the weather. it's really the only thing we all have in common. it's the best go-to for conversation when you're strapped for ideas, or when you find yourself chit-chatting with a complete stranger. it's a crucial part of life. don't tell me how to feel about it. don't rob me of my humanity.