Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

While most of the feedback is friendly and benign, the straightedge column definitely struck a chord with a few more militant members who felt unfairly characterized as violent, and responded with anger. If you've got feedback, please email it to media@bmezine.com (that goes for all articles); I'm posting the letters at the end of the article.

One thing that's very clear is that straightedge has many facets — with each one absolutely certain that they and only they are the “true” edge. So I guess no matter what I write on this subject, someone thinks they're being mislabeled. Anyway, I do appreciate the feedback.

Other than that I'm still chugging along a little on Sunday's update, so some of you might actually get emails with passwords and so on tonight. I'll mention a little bit of war news; sorry I haven't had time to much recently — but to be honest, not much is changing over there. I expect it will have to soon on account of the 2004 election.

The US government's “Iraqi Governing Council” has opted to have the Iraqis stop counting civilian deaths, and has ordered the stats department to not release any figures that it currently has, saying only “we're trying to keep civilian deaths to a minimum” (more). What, have they got Rafti working for them? “Honest, I haven't killed many civilians… but the stats on it are top secret!”

Not only are Iraqi children and civilians continuing to die, but the US is doing more “accidental” bombing runs on civilians in Afghanistan (yes, that's still going on), killing six children in a recent attack in Paktia (more). They say that it's the children's fault for being too close to terrorists (who turned out to have left the area days before the bombing run) — the US response? “I can't guarantee that we will not injure more civilians.”

Yeah, surprise, surprise…

But it's not all roses. Young Americans are continuing to be killed for corporate greed in Iraq (more). Every day, more coffins go home (but you won't see that on the news because the US has banned their media from covering it) while Halliburton continues to get wealthy — charging the US military over double what others in the area pay (more).

Of course, Bush could literally tear his face off and reveal the skin of a reptilian overlord (more), and he'd still get re-elected with a majority. Thank you Diebold, we love you (more, more, more).

Rebekah gets the credit for finding this picture and inspiring the caption:

Tattooed man hangs his head in shame
as he realizes who he is standing next to.

If you read my page regularly, you know that combat injuries (legs blown off, brain damage, and so on) are very high in Iraq and there is a concerted effort on the part of the Pentagon to hide these injuries — everything from classing land mine injuries as “non-combat” to banning reporters from funerals and hospitals. Well, they've reached a new low.

The latest “tactic” in misleading the American public as to how many of their children are being mutilated in Iraq is to deny Purple Hearts to those injured in combat (more). That's pretty vile… What kind of person does it take to say to a kid with no legs on account of stepping on a land mine while out on patrol, “Oh, you screwed up on your own time; those injuries are your fault and have nothing to do with the military.”

It's just really sick.

In other news, I wanted to do a mini-analysis of this story, “Body art no longer shocks, only shrouds personalities“, written by the bigot and moron Alex Watson:

Like so much else, the '60s changed that. In the never-ending quest for shock value that was the decade 1965-1975, breaking down established gender roles was all the rage; women wore (gasp!) pants, and men grew their hair long and got (gasp!) earrings. It's fairly obvious who got the better side of that bargain!

Ignoring his comments on “earrings on men” and so on, step back not too far and the first thing you see is that Alex Watson thinks women are “lower” than men — suggesting that for women to be allowed to do activities which he sees as masculine is good for them, but for men to be allowed to do activities which he associates with women is bad for them… He's basically saying “the world was better when men were men, and women were women” with a dose of “men are better than women” thrown in for good measure.

Since those heady days, piercings and tattoos have broken out into mainstream America, despite efforts to resist their advance.

Despite efforts to resist their advance? What the hell does that mean? It's a disease brought on by the lower classes, or worse yet, effeminate men, one that “good upstanding men's men” like Alex have been fighting against in the streets?

Soldiers got tattoos to show their devotion to their units (and tolerance for pain); now the rallying cry for body art is "self-expression."

Yeah, because devotion to the government is soooo much better than self-expression. Oh no! That dude is thinking for himself! Draft him now!

Equally mystifying to me is the insistence women have for placing tattoos in out-of-the-way places. ... All the women I know with tattoos place it somewhere that only extremely low-cut attire can reveal. In essence, they get tattoos that no one can see unless they want them to.

Does this dipshit not understand women at all? Did it ever occur to him that perhaps they're getting these tattoos not for him to jerk off over when they are seen by him in the street, but to be sexy with their partner in private? It should be pretty damn obvious — has he never heard of lingerie? Or is he angry that people wear lingerie under their clothes, not on top?

The race is currently on to find the next big piercing spot -- the one that all the rebels around will flock to have perforated. The first big thing was the gender-crossing: men -- straight men -- with earrings! Then we had multiple ear piercings; then nose rings borrowed from the bovine world...

Oh no! Men getting earrings — are they “trannies”? Are they “queers”? Straight men are defiling themselves this way? Oh no! Oh no! Anyway, it's one thing to whine about piercing, but to just fabricate piercing trends and piercing history to make one's case seems a little lame.

What's wrong with the way God made us?

Ah, the faith-based argument, last bastion of the whining babies. God — if we're to believe the Christian Bible — has no problems with you piercing or tattooing yourself… And if we're to believe the texts of other holy books, the same holds in the vast majority of them. This all, combined with Alex Watson's other whining articles (“there's too much profanity on TV”), leads me to the inevitable conclusion that Alex Watson is simply another prejudiced moron.

And now for something lighter to finish off this update; an email I received this morning:

Subject: did it hurt
From: faye loughrey

Hi shannon my name is faye u sound nice i wondered iwant my belly dun my parents will let me but it is sssssssssssoooooooooo long to wait i av got to wait till 2 weeks before xmas please cud u help
      luv faye

Um… Wouldn't that mean you only have to wait three days?