'INSERT' History Month

Asian history month, black history month, womens history month, gay&lesbian month, um...vertically challenged multi colored D&D fan month...point is it seems there's a month out for just about everybody these days, with the exception of whites and males. Now I'm not about to start a rant about how I'm offended by this and how I think whites and males deserve a month too, cause quite frankly I couldn't care less. All these times of the year do is stress that the group in name is more important and/or should be payed more attention to during these 30 days. It also, whether intentionally or unintentionally, goes against the entire concept of the people having a month. The reason all these groups of people have months is because at one point or another the group was mistreated and everyone thought they'd make it better by saying "ok during this time of the year, its YOUR time." But in the end all the groups wanted was to be treated as equals (or so they say) Yet the only thing these months do, is imply the opposite. Its saying 'hey its black history month. start paying attention to all the things blacks have done, but pay attention now cause its their month, yes they are special'. Maybe its just me, but personally I don't like the idea of the BLANK-history month. Maybe someday we WILL achieve equality and people will stop seeing in terms like this...and maybe someday I'll trip over a stack of gold bars and fall down next to the winning lottery ticket paperclipped to the map to atlantis underneath the foot of a naked supermodel.

Ugh...muslims

For those who don't know, I don't like Muslims...at all. I don't agree with 90% of their philosphy and beliefs, I don't like many of their views on society, and I don't trust them in the least. Does this mean I don't like them? Not necessarily. We have several Muslims in our unit as translators (iraqi by nationality). They're cool people and are ok to be around, but you can bet your ass when the bullets start whipping by on the battlefield I'm not putting my back to any of them. Lately I've been debating back and forth on getting help for this issue of hatred and discrimination. Sometimes I think its an immense priority and I need it taken care of as soon as possible. Other times I say to myself "screw it, I dont mind hating them." It gives me someone to blame when I'm having one of my rants, I can vent to myself or others and use them as a scapegoat for just about everything thats going wrong in this country (even though most of it IS their fault) and above all, I'm sure its much easier to kill someone when you hate them. Now is this to say that all Muslims are evil, no. I'm not that ignorant and I'm not one of those yahoo's who thinks that all arab or muslim people are bad. Though this does not mean I'm not suspicious of them. People say to me "you know not all muslims are terrorists" yeah well a whole hell of alot of terrorists are muslim. Someone also once said "you know not every bad guy happens to be a muslim." 'True' I told him 'I guess I was mistaken in thinking all NINETEEN of the 9/11 hijackers were muslims, or the orignal world trade center bomber, or the 09 Christmas flight bomber, or Major Hasan...any of this getting through?' Rather he ignored my valid point and began to pummel Timothy McVay (spelling?) into my brain for about 15 minutes. We spend all our soldiers precious time and lives trying to fix these third world nations (all of whom are muslim by the way) and half of them blow us up saying "we dont want you here" Well no wonder your countrys going to hell, one half says you need all the outside intervention you can get and the other simply wants to continue blowing things up without regard for the next 5 minutes like a kid with ADD and an M80. I seem to have gone completely off topic by now so I'll stop and save my rant about how I hate playing nice-lets-be-friends with these sand people for another time.