Thoughtless for the Day

"Let's have a war! Give guns to the Queers!"
- Fear

General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently made headlines not by sleeping on a corduroy pillow, but by stating that Gays should not be allowed to serve in the armed forces because, in his opinion, homosexuality is immoral (unintentionally hilarious headline here).

It's hard to know where to start with this one. First, there's the obvious irony of a guy who was a cheerleader for the Iraq War (I hear he still has the outfit) swinging the word "immoral" around like a purse. I don't know about you, but I can't remember ever seeing PFLAG have to call a press conference to explain civilian casualties. Then there's that whole "Isn't the Army kinda Gay to begin with?" thing. After all, guys are showering together and we've all heard stories about that circle of toilets that all face inward (while I was unable to find an actual picture of these porcelain Stonehenges, I did stumble across this nightmare fodder).

The real question here is, of course, the effectiveness of Gays as fighters. Thankfully, RATYHTL is America's leading producer of Historical Perspective. Let's open up a fresh box now:

Alexander the Great (AKA "Alexander the Fabulous) [Gay Rating: FLAMING]:
Alexander is almost universally regarded as History's greatest general. Alexander never lost a single battle. And Alexander was also gayer than Oscar Wilde dancing cheek-to-cheek with Ted Haggard while Liberace plays "The Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies" on the skin flute. [Hey, remember that old anti-drug PSA where the dad find's his son's stash and asks him where he learned to do drugs and the kid shouts "I learned it from watching you, OK?" ? Well, Alex's dad, Philip of Macedonia, was killed by his male lover, Pausanias of Orestis. It's an ugly story that involves, I shit thee not, abuse at the hands of mule-drivers.] Normally, I would rest my case with "History's greatest general was Gay", but I really feel the need to hammer the point home, so let's move on.

Julius Caesar [Gay Rating: "Every woman's husband. Every man's wife]
It's not so much that Julius Caesar was bisexual as he was just plain horny. Looking back over some of the passages in Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars", I don't think rocks and most root vegetables were even safe from the relentless onslaught of Julius' gyrating genitals. Anyway, under the military's "Don't ask; don't tell" policy, even Caesar himself would be denied a chance to do what he did best - well, maybe second best - kill people.

So, just as "Peter Pace" would be a great Gay porn star name, butt pirates make excellent generals (I'm pretty sure that Paglia once said that this was because they understood the tactic of enticement over mindless penetration). But what about the common foot soldier? Surely you could never have a successful fighting unit (heh, heh "unit") of homosexuals, could you?

The Sacred Band of Thebes [Gay Rating: "The Boys in the Band" meets Platoon]
The Sacred Band of Thebes consisted of 300 soldiers, or, more precisely, 150 pairs of lovers who served as the elite fighting force (the entry at Wikipedia uses the unfortunate term "crack force") of the Theban army during the fourth century BCE.

The logic behind pairing up Gay soldiers comes straight out of Plato's Symposium:

And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonor, and emulating one another in honor; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger?

Did it work? Well, in 375 BCE, the Sacred Band thoroughly kicked the asses of the Spartans. Looks like the movie 300 may've focused on the wrong guys.

Ironically, it was the butt-bangin' Philip of Macedonia who in 338 BCE annihilated the Sacred Band of Thebes on the plain of Chaeronea.

"Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered any thing that was base." - Philip of Macedonia looking upon the dead bodies of the Sacred Band of Thebes.

"Sure," you might say "that may have all been well and good back in ancient times when people were more tolerant and read books and shit, but what about our modern Judeo-Christian battlefields? Wouldn't a Gay run like a frightened little girl when faced with today's technological warfare and ugly uniforms?

Meet Marine Staff Sergeant Eric Fidelis Alva [Gay Rating: Macho, macho man!]:

Three years ago this month, while most young men of Eric's age where standing in line for X-boxes, Sgt. Alva was proudly serving in Iraq. That's where on March 21, Eric, exiting his Humvee, stepped on a landmine and lost his right leg: earning him the unfortunate distinction of being the first American soldier wounded in Iraq and a bedside visit from the President and the first lady.

Eric is also a Gay man who, despite the loss of a leg, could still kick your ass up down a flight of stairs before his first cup of coffee and without breaking a sweat.

"I am an American who fought for his country and for the rights and freedoms of all American citizens, not just some of them, but all of them. When I was injured, everybody didn't stop, the people who knew me -- that I was gay -- to say, 'Well he's gay. Don't help him. Let's not save his life.' They were saving the life of an American." -Eric Alva, Marine.

_._

Epilogue:
$250 million to $1 billion: The amount, estimated by the Government Accountability Office in taxpayer dollars being spent to investigate gays in the military and have them kicked out.

Posted by Rodney Anonymous at 02:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (0)

The latest Aid or Invade has been posted (here's a clue: the country is Brazil). While it's a miracle in itself that the City Paper continues to publish AoI what's even more miraculous is that this month's column appears on the same page as a story about Dean Clean and his old band Narthex (Joe and I got to see Dean and Mike Ace at the Landmark Tavern in '82 - one of the best live shows of my youth. "Hey Dean, where we goin'?" "Nowhere!")

Posted by Rodney Anonymous at 07:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

By this point in the Iraq War, we've all heard innumerous stories the Sunnis and the Shiites. It's starting to get to where even George Bush is almost able to tell them apart. But why do you never her about the plight of the Mandaeans?

The Mandaeans are a sect residing in southern Iraq as well as the Iranian province of Khuzestan (AKA "the Iranian Riviera"), consisting of roughly 60,000 members (maybe less: see below) who revere John the Baptist practice baptism, and go to church on Sunday. Which would make the Christians, right? No. The Mandaeans believe that Jesus was a false prophet who stole, then distorted the teaching of John the Baptist.

So, if the Mandaeans aren't Christians and they live the Middle East, they must be Muslims! Nope: Muhammad was a false prophet too. And, no, the Mandaeans aren't Jews either: Moses and Abraham were - altogether now - false prophets!. The only Real McCoy's recognized as prophets by the oh-so-choosy Mandaeans are Adam and a few of his offspring as well as Noah and a couple of his ark-brats.

For the sake of brevity, let's just call the Mandaeans Gnostics (perhaps the last surviving true Gnostic sect) and move on.

Now, if being a Sunni or a Shiite in Iraq means that the odds are roughly 50/50 that you're going to be digging shrapnel out of your ass before lunch, imagine what life must be like for the Mandaeans who are neither Sunni nor Shiite. There are rabbits living on Dick Cheney's ranch that have a better chance of seeing the next sunrise than the average Iraqi Mandaean. I wonder why an atrocity of this nature is getting so little press. Maybe it has something to do with swarthy foreigners who call Jeebuz a false prophet?

Oddly, the repository of all human knowledge, Conservapedia didn't have a single article about the Mandaeans. The closest religious sect beginning with the letter M that I could find there was the Mormons. Here's what I learned about them:

"... most Mormons are products of adulterous relationships"

And now some culture

Posted by Rodney Anonymous at 09:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Last time, I recommended a few new gods for the Neocons to replace that pansy, Jesus Christ, with. What about those "Free Mumia" shouting, Che Guevara T-shirt wearing Trustafarians who haunt our nation's Anarchist bookstores? Who are they to pray to?

To be honest, I had to think long and hard about this one. It's not easy picking deities for the squat-house set. Chiefly because most gods tend to actually do something. Keeping that in mind, here are my best suggestions:

Atum:
According to Egyptian mythology, Atum was the first god and was responsible for the creation of both a god (Shu) and a goddess (Tefnut). OK, I know on the surface that would seem like a pretty ambitious project, unless you stop to consider that Atum created the world by jerkin' his divine gherkin. Just so the comments section doesn't fill up with questions about how Atum could produce offspring by flogging the bishop, I'm going to tell you how the temple walls say he did it, but first I'm going to ask the kids to leave the room. OK, he squirted his "god broth" into his mouth and thereby knocked himself up. People have gotten PhD's for writing about that.

Calliope:
Sing, goddess, the anger of Achilles! But first, would you mind serving that smelly hippie who's reciting that endless, awful poem about how Wal-Mart was behind the 9/11 attacks an Olympian-sized plate of SHUTTHEFUCKUP! Calliope is the muse of poetry. Judging by some of the crap I've heard performed over the last several years, hers cannot be an easy lot. Cheer up, Calliope. As long as there's still Ish Klein, there's still hope.

Fue:
The Samoan god of sweet potatoes. His buddies call him "F-you".

Since the kids are still out of the room...

Posted by Rodney Anonymous at 08:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Wow. That was certainly some stomach virus; definitely not the 24 hour variety. People often ask me if, as an Atheist, I've ever prayed when I've gotten seriously ill. Yes, I have. On Thursday I prayed at "the Shrine of the Porcelain Goddess" about a dozen times in the space of four hours. If you need another barometric measure of how sick I was, this morning I drank my first cup of tea since Tuesday.

Being stuck in bed has given me plenty of time (perhaps too much) to contemplate Anne Coulter's accusations of Faggotry-in-the-First-Degree against John Edwards. (I know Faggots. I've worked with Faggots. You, Senator, are no Faggot. And that's not a compliment) No so much the actual insult itself, but the question of why the Neocons*, resolute in their hatred of all things Gay, would worship a screaming bender like Jesus Christ.

Think about it. Is there anybody who embodies the opposite of the Neocon philosophy more that Jesus? Just look at him with his soft, flowing hair, his Pride Day robe, and his Birkenstocks. "Love thy neighbor"? What kind of bullshit is that? What if your neighbor has WMD (but probably doesn't: depending on whether or not you read the intelligence reports all the way through or skimmed over them)? Jesus might as well of said "Love thy neighbor, but fist bend over and grab your ankles." That sort of Gay-ass talk may have gone over big on the shores of the Galilee and the beaches of Fire Island, Mr. H. Christ; but that shit ain't gonna flush in George Bush's America! Sure, Jesus once said that if you didn't have a sword you should sell your clothes to buy one but as any city dweller can tell you, naked guys waving blades are a dime-a-dozen. After awhile they become so commonplace that they could frighten a child let alone hordes of swarthy Islamofascists.

No. It's pretty clear: If the Neocons are going to keep their footing, they need to drop Jesus Christ as quickly as the Democrats dropped their commitment to the poor. But where will they ever find a new deity on which to blame their anti-social behavior? Always the helpful citizen, I'd like to suggest three candidates (one more than we normally get to choose from in most elections, by the way):

Kali:
Kali is sort of the Anne Coulter of deities (unlike Coulter, however, Kali does not have a penis). One of the translations of Kali is "She who devours time" and anyone who has spent even a few minutes with Coulter has probably called her the same thing (Oddly, Kali aslo translates as "She who is black": which gives her kind of a Condi Rice thing, but I digress...) In Hindu mythology, Kali has been depicted as dancing about the battlefield, intoxicated by the blood of the slain like a celestrial Lindasy Engalnd. Unfortunetly, Kali is also revered as a destoryer of ignorance (AKA "book-lernin"); so we might have to pass on her.

Quetzalcoatl:
While I haven't seen Neocon icon (say that three times fast) Mel Gibson's Appocalypto, I have been to EPCOT, where I learned that Quetzalcoatl was the Aztec feathered-serpent god to whom countess humans were sacrificed and that, as a Mexican, Quetzalcoatl is pretty much guarenteed to work for less than any American deity. Like the former Neocon, poster-God, Quetzalcoatl was born of a virgin: the goddess Coatlicue. Also, Quetzelquatol was... wait! "Feathered-serpent"??? Is there any more of a symbol of creeping Homocity than the feathered boa? Looks like Quetzalcoatl may be out of the running as well as the closet. Sorry, sugartits.

Wodan:
You probably know Wodan beter by the name Odin. Since we don't call Wednesday "Ednisday", I stand by my spelling. OK, so Wodan has a day of the week named after him, what else qualifies him for Neocon worship? Well, for one, like Jesus, Woden was crucified and pierced in the side by a speer. But, unlike JC, Woden didn't pussy out and die after three days. Woden hung in (litterally) for nine days! And when he finally climbed down he went forth and kicked some ass. By the way, Wodan doesn't eat food: he get's by on wine alone! Not unlike George Bush during his National Guard days. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we may have a winner!

In Other News:
Someone has "pulled a Buffy" upon the remains of Slobodan Milosevic, Newt Gingrich has admitted that during the period in which he was activily seeking Bill Clinton's impeachment, he was having an extrmarital affair.

*According to Andrew Cockburn during an appearance on Democracy Now George W. Bush had to ask his father what a Neocon was. This conversation took place in2006.

Posted by Rodney Anonymous at 08:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (11) | TrackBacks (0)

I've written (a letter to daaaaaddy) a piece about humor in music (I'm against it) for Rock Town Hall. You can read it here. Oh, and I have a truly digusting stomach virus that seems to be all-the-rage among the young people.

Posted by Rodney Anonymous at 08:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

OK, last time I showed what happens to readers' comments once they're submitted to RATYHTL. But how the seven thousand-year-old Earth do those comments get submitted in the first place? In order to follow that process from start to finish, we'll a typical RATYHTL reader.

Meet Brian "Chuck" Whitman. Chuck is about as typical a RATYHTL reader as a typical reader can get. He's a White heterosexual male between 28 and 47 years old, has spent at least two years in college, earns between $45,000 and $180,000 a year, and has jerked off to the Vincent Gallo masterpiece Brown Bunny at least six times. His hobbies include making fun of Fundies and…well that's pretty much it. Chuck also firmly believes that the Simpson's started to suck lemur balls once they began singing in every episode.

Chuck has recently read something on RATYHTL that he'd like to comment about. But how? When he clicks on the comments link below the piece, he's told that he needs to sign in.

Why doesn't the comments software recognize him from the forum? Why do bad things keep happening to good people?

First, the main body of the blog uses different software than the forum. So, even if you have an account in the forum, you'll need to set up a separate one in order to leave comments (don't blame me, blame the spammers).

After Chuck clicks "sign in" he'll be taken to the TypeKey authentication site where he'll next click "Create a Free Account"

Next he'll need to choose a "member name" (no, not a nickname for his schlong), a "display name", and a password. Check has chosen "J_Alfred_Sheetrock" because there's nothing that the ladies love more than a TS Eliot in-joke.

Now Chuck just needs to enter his first and last name as well as his email address and then type some letters and numbers in a box before agreeing to the terms of service and proving, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that he is over 13 years old, by checking a box. A click of a button and Chuck is on his way!

Chuck just has to retrieve his activation code from his email (he should open another window in his browser - maybe two if he's looking at porn), and enter that code in the area provided

Now he's ready to leave that comment:

Come to think of it, that does seem like a shitload of work to go through just to tell me that I suck. Maybe you people are better off keeping your goddamn opinions to yourselves? Either way, I promise that this will be the last non-archaeological/literary/historical/anthropological/linguistic/hickey-related post for a long. Long time.

Still having trouble posting a comment? You can always try leaving one here

Posted by Rodney Anonymous at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

Q: Why is there such a long gap between when I submit a comment and when the comment actually appears?

A: Unlike most websites, RATYHTL subjects each submitted comment to a rigorous review process:

Step One: Is the comment in bad taste?

Once a comment has been submitted, it is then sent to Ground Zero where it is reviewed by RATYHTL's Board of Standards and Practices, consisting of the ghosts of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold and Rev. Zmb. (zombie) Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

If the comment is deemed to be in good taste, it is then beamed directly into a small radio transceiver implanted in the skull of Shamu the Killer Whale...

...where it is then translated into a Michelle Malkin-specific insult. For example, after undergoing this process, the following comment:

Rodney, I hate to disagree with you but, while the "Religious Right" may be to behind many of our country's current problems, I find it hard to believe that they blackmailed astronomers into stripping Pluto of its status as a planet.

... was translated into ...

If a comment is found to be in "poor", "bad" or "caca-dooty" taste, it is then forwarded to none other than Professor Stephen Hawking to be checked for scientific accuracy.

Finally, if a comment passes all of the above criteria, or was submitted by "briannirvana", it is posted in the comments section. Tomorrow I'll show you just how to actually submit your comments.

Having trouble posting a comment? You can always try leaving one here.

Posted by Rodney Anonymous at 08:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)