Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket?

[mijan]

It's my lunch break.  I went to icanhascheezburger.com, as I often do.  After looking at the Lolcats, I went over to cheezburger's sister site, PunditKitchen, which makes LOLz of news, current events, politicians, and other such photos.

I saw this photo, begging to be captioned, and couldn't resist:




I think I have secured my spot in the handbasket to hell.  But it's been a fun ride!

Comments

[daddybear716.livejournal.com]

Oh honey you already had that spot in hell reserved. All you've done is upgraded to the A-List Party in the VIP room of Hell. I'll be hosting with Malibu, it will be the place to be.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Sounds lovely, m'dear! I'll bring cookies.

[jjchicken.livejournal.com]

I love icanhazcheezburger.com (it is indeed an excellent break from working) and I lovelovelove PunditKitchen, this one makes me seriously lol - cheers!

[mijan.livejournal.com]

*grins* Horrible joke, but I sporfled at my desk at work when I thought of it. I mean, seriously, the picture just says it all.

[queenal.livejournal.com]

Actually, that really is mean.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I was in the Army. Call it tasteless, but if you had been military yourself, you'd get the joke.

[queenal.livejournal.com]

You mean how if you were in the military, you'd understand Prince Harry calling fellow soldiers pakis, ragheads and queers?

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Listen, I'm not about to explain long-standing Army in-jokes to civilians on my LJ. I'm sorry if it offended your sensibilities, but it's well known that both PunditKitchen and Soldiers are generally tasteless when it comes to humor.

I've heard WORSE than "pakis, ragheads, and queers" come out of the mouths of fellow troops, and I've called them on it. I've heard the "limp-wristed faggot" remarks from officers who outrank me, and I've kept my trap shut even though I'm gay and I found it highly offensive.

If you think that because a few hyper-sensitive civilians object to the use of the term "SPECIAL" in the context of a joke, that Drill Sergeants are going to stop asking trainees if they "special" and if they "rode the short bus" to school, then think again. We hear it from DAY 1, and the jokes, however politically incorrect they might be, are not going away anytime soon.

The military is not the hug-me club. It's not going to ever be some sort of soft, cushy therapy session. It can't afford to cater to the weak, the slow, or the daft. I watched them try once, because of stop-loss policies, to keep a Private who was a danger to the entire platoon. Can't be done. It's put-up or shut-up. And in training, if a soldier is acting stupid, you can't coddle him or her. You give the trainee a verbal boot to the head, and if Private Joe Snuffy can't figure it out, then the unit can't afford for him to figure it out the hard way later down the road.

I'm sorry you can't understand military jokes. Don't try. You won't get it.

I'm not necessarily proud of some of the things I've done and said during my time in the military, but I've done a lot better than most. I went through hell because I tried to get a group of officers to stop using slurs against Muslims, and was given the cold shoulder in yet another unit (almost destroying my career) for refusing to tolerate the terms "retard," "faggot," and "towel-head," amongst others. Believe me, I was pegged as a flaming liberal and pretty much had my career ruined.

Until you've been there, you can't understand it. So, thank you for coming onto my LJ to give me a lesson in Political Correctness. Believe me, I know all about it. I'm usually the one getting thrown under the bus trying to stop people's offensive remarks and attitudes. And now, I get thrown under the short bus for making a wise-crack on my own LJ.

[queenal.livejournal.com]

I'm on your LJ because I friended you after liking your fics and posting gushing reviews of them. I didn't randomly appear.

No, I haven't been in the military. I'm not sure why that means it's OK to take the mick out of people with disabilties, though. I know what you mean about the dark humour you live with in certain jobs, but usually, once you leave that darkness, you leave that dark humour behind too, surely? Unless you're with other people who were there with you?

Maybe you should have filtered this post further. I didn't know it was ex-military only. From what you've said, I assume it was only posted on your LJ, not on icanhascheezburger itself, which was my initial impression.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Great. Just... wonderful. I have a bad day, and now I'm sure I've created the wrong impression because off an off-colour joke. I've had the flu for the past week, I've got two days to finish preparing for a convention, my wife is sick now, and instead of getting to have a laugh, I get the wonderful guilt-trip, not as much due to the joke, but due to the fact that I've been rude to one of my readers. For that, I do apologize, for what it's worth.

And bear in mind that from my perspective... I don't recognize your screen name, I don't remember you introducing yourself to me, there's not a lot of stuff on your LJ for me to reference, and therefore, to me, it DOES look like you're a random person I've never met.

The post isn't military-only. The post was intended for the people who I thought typically read my LJ - people with an off-colour sense of humour, and who can understand that while I'm generally a caring and compassionate person, I'm also occasionally quite sarcastic. Blame it on training, who knows? I wasn't taking the mick out of people with disabilities. Correct me if I'm wrong, but based on the fact that PunditKitchen takes snapshots from the actual news, that's not a disabled guy, but an actual soldier caught by the camera at a bad moment and horrible angle. I'm "taking the mick" out of the GI who looks utterly laughable in that particular picture, and the joke stems directly from the off-colour humour of the military. Soldiers pick on each other. Sometimes, it seems really harsh, but it's part of the culture. It's very very easy to slip back into old jokes and such when certain triggers remind me. Unless you've been through it, it's impossible to understand.

The military isn't just a job. You don't leave your military training behind the way you leave other jobs behind. It remains a part of you - certain jokes, certain mannerisms, certain ways of thinking. Even if they're things you don't approve of, you don't forget. And at the time I wrote that one, yes, I was "talking shop" with some other veterans online.

As for filtering... I don't see why I should have to censor myself. Nobody else who replied to my post was military, and they were amused. They know me well enough to know that I'm not judgmental, that I'm not a bigot, and that I don't have a hateful bone in my body. They also know that I can have a sarcastic side. So, KNOWING ME, they found the joke funny.

And it's not posted on icanhascheezburger, but I did save and submit it. Mostly, in summary... I can see how this caption might be considered distasteful, but not worth being deeply offended. I was mocking the military, not special needs people. I would never, have never, and could never even consider making a caption like that about an actual handicapped person. I was mocking a bad picture of a soldier. That's all. And yes, I thought it was funny.

[queenal.livejournal.com]

Well, I wasn't deeply offended - like I said, I just thought it was a bit mean. Sorry you're upset - you posted up a picture, and I made a comment on it - it was no big deal.

It's still mocking people with disabilities, but I understand your ntentions better now.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry that I made a bigger deal out of it than I should have. I've seriously had the nastiest cold over the past several days, and I've been an emotional roller coaster. Sunday, I was crying at everything, and yesterday I was irritable and jumpy and bristly. I was getting set off by the slightest thing, and resorted to sarcasm as a coping mechanism. I've seriously just been an emotional wreck the past few days, and haven't even been acting like my normal self. I think I got upset when you compared the "special" comment to using terms like "pakis, ragheads and queers," which are direct malicious namecalling of certain groups of people, directly at the people about whom those terms refer.

But yeah, my intentions aren't to mock people with disabilities at all. It's completely a play-off on the age-old Drill Sergeant berating, used when a trainee just does something so purely stupid that it requires a good mocking: "What's the matter with you, Private? You've just gotta be doggone special, don'tcha Private? Gotta do your own thing, gotta be special, don't listen to what your Drill Sergeant told you to do. You rode the short bus to school, didn't ya, Private? Yep, you're ready to sign up for Special Forces, aren't you?" That's paraphrased, of course, but that's a standard summary variation of the same lecture we heard over and over.

And seriously, we had some really stupid people in training with us. NOT actually handicapped people, but people who had absolutely no sense, and no ability to follow directions. The best examples:

- The woman who couldn't figure out how to keep the barrel of her rifle pointed "down range" (towards the targets) while walking along the firing line, and kept "accidentally" swinging her rifle towards other people.
- The guy who tripped over his own two feet on the scaffolding, five stories up and almost went through the safety rail, because he couldn't watch where he was stepping, and when we put him on the ground, he tripped over his own two feet on the ground and made a mess of himself.
- The whole squad of guys who decided to be special and not wear proper underwear for the day we got fitted for our dress uniforms (the decided to wear their spandex shorts instead) after being specifically told "You MUST wear underwear for the fitting," and the tailors refused to fit them, and our whole platoon became known as the Underwear Bandits.

Either way... yeah, there are just some things, tasteless as they may be, that still make veterans (even the most sensitive and politically correct of us) snicker.

Okay, I must still be not-quite-with-it because I'm continuing to ramble. At any rate, please accept my apology for the misunderstanding, and if you wish, I'll re-set the visibility settings on this post.

[orbitaldiamonds.livejournal.com]

And now, I get thrown under the short bus for making a wise-crack on my own LJ.

WELL SAID.

[pink-grrl.livejournal.com]

Don't worry you'll have lots of company! Including me. I'll bring sandwiches.

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Oooh, sandwiches!

*nom nom nom*

[alaana-fair.livejournal.com]

*dies* That's too funny!

It's a cozy little basket though, isn't it? *G*

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Very much so! And always room for more. (And jello.)

[alaana-fair.livejournal.com]

*snickers* Oh, well as long as there's jello! :-D

[mijan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, not so much if the random person I don't know a couple of comments above yours keeps it up. Take a look.