A Response to Todd Akin And His Like-Minded Public Figures

While the comment I'm writing about in this post can be found on any number of different sources, I'll just put one here for reference: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/us/politics/todd-akin-provokes-ire-with-legitimate-rape-comment.html

Dear Mr. Akin,

What year is it where you're living? Where I'm living right now, it's the year 2012. Where I'm living, the United States of America is one of the leading nations in the politic sphere - a nation other countries look to as a model on which to base their own public policy. Where I'm living right now we clearly have different standards than where you're living. The only thing that I can really conclude from your statements in regards to rape is that you must have gone into a coma in the 60's and just now woken up, because you're clearly living in a world where rape is a vague concept that is open to your own misogynistic interpretation on a case-by-case basis. I've got news for you, sir - that's not how we play anymore.

There are so many things wrong with your statement. First of all, it's not at all true that women's bodies have ways of shutting pregnancy down in the case of rape. (Not even a little bit!) Clearly you actually don't understand what those doctors are saying, because you're just plain wrong. Check your facts! Second of all, I can't believe that you actually dared to use the phrase "legitimate rape." Wake up! We're living in the 21st century. Rape does not need to be a violent act. Rape does not need to be an act by a male on a female. Rape doesn't even have to be an non-consensual act based on statutory rape laws. I think you might want to visit a law library sometime very soon.

I'm sure that you've heard many negative remarks in regard to your statement. Mine is not going to be any less negative than the others. However, it might be different. Many people have said they find your remarks (and your entire person and personality) to be disgusting, sad, abominable, horrendous, etc. I, on the other hand, do not find your comments to be accurately encompassed by any of these colorful descriptors. I find your comments to be just plain frightening. America is a country that is founded on the principle of individual human rights. It's founded on a principle of equality. It's founded on principles of freedom to choose how to live your life - religiously, fiscally, politically, spiritually, etc. Body autonomy should be part of those rights. Body autonomy includes things like how to dress, whether or not to get tattoos and piercings, with whom to have sex (ahem.... rape victims are classified as such because this right of body autonomy was stolen from them), etc. I find it terrifying that our country that is supposedly so forward thinking and whatnot has actually elected and supported candidates like yourself who support victim blaming as a legitimate form of dealing with rape cases. How am I, as a young woman living on my own, supposed to feel safe if you and other like-minded political leaders are going to say that it wasn't "legitimate" rape if I were to be drugged to the point of having no physical control over my own body while I'm out on the town with friends?

You have dug your own political grave in my opinion, Mr. Akin. I really, truly hope that the rest of America listened when you opened your fat mouth to make that comment. And, further, I hope that they think about their daughters and sons when they consider your comment. I would love to see you explain to the parents of a 17 year old mother-to-be that their daughter is pregnant because her rape wasn't legitimate or violent enough, and that the traumatic sexual assault that will torment all of them for the rest of their lives is really something that they should celebrate. Try saying that to one of the members of the Tea Party that so proudly supports you. Most of them are NRA card-holders and would probably have no problem with vigilante justice. Mr. Akin, you disgust me, you frighten me, and you need to withdraw your candidacy from both the political race as well as the human race.

Sincerely,
Bee

A Response To IFB Sermon On Sodomy

Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1kOktuyAJU

Dear Independent Fundamental Baptists,

I first must preface this post with a disclaimer that I was raised in one of your churches. I am not some random person who was raised as a "hippie-liberal-outsider," who just stumbled across this video and decided to respond to it. I lived in your community under your rules for 18 years (18 years too long in my opinion) until I managed to get out of your oppressive community. While I could probably write an entire book on the IFB and their absurd teachings (I could spend chapters alone on your teaching of Proverbs 13:24), I will stick only to this particular sermon on sodomy. I'll try to time-stamp exact quotes on which I'm commenting.

Pastor Anderson starts off by introducing the topic of this clip by pointing out that there are only three passages that actually deal with "sodomites - homosexuals; queers; faggots!" (0:23) This is just the first of his many technical errors made in this discussion. The definition of sodomite is: one who engages in sexual intercourse involving anal or oral copulation. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe there are a lot of heterosexual couples out there who engage in anal and oral sex. In fact, I'd venture a guess that simply based on population percentages that there are more men have received blow jobs from women than from other men. So, really, your entire sermon just went out the window considering that you synonymously use homosexual and sodomite throughout the rest of your fundamentalist ideological rant. But, I'll humor you. Let's continue and see what else you have to say, shall we?

You go on to point out that "every homosexual in the Bible is a rapist or a molester - child molester - whatever you want to call it!" Well, gee! I guess you just about covered every case of queer sexual interaction that happened over the span of several hundred years in which the Bible was written with those three stories (which is actually what they are - stories - not proven facts with substantial evidence to support them; they wouldn't call it believing if the Bible were able to be proven to be true, after all). So, you've got us there: we are, indeed, all rapists and child molesters. Might as well start arresting all of us! Or, maybe you should just look around that room of "God's followers" you're preaching to - I'm sure a lot of them would know a thing or two about what those kinds of perverts think and do. You go on to say that "every single homosexual in the Bible was bisexual." (1:00) I suggest that you look up the definitions of "homosexual" and "bisexual," because you clearly don't know the meaning of either word.

Anderson's discussion on "sin nature" (about 1:30-3:30) is actually one of the most ridiculous pieces of preaching I've heard in a while. He tells his followers that it's their sinful nature to lust after the opposite gender, and that's actually okay since it's a "natural" sin.  It's actually pretty acceptable, expected even, that men will drive by a billboard of a scantily clad female model (or, as Anderson puts it at 2:13, "that porno") and be tempted to look at it with lustful eyes. I know that within your churches this is considered acceptable due to the ability to pray for forgiveness upon recognizing that you've done wrong, but I'd be willing to put money behind my confidence that your followers are guilty of checking out attractive people of the opposite sex far more often than they acknowledge in their prayers.

Twice later in this sermon Anderson refers to the Biblical text-evidence "proving" that homosexuals are stupid (4:35 and 9:30). Well, I find this particularly ironic since he himself has already equated the three words "sodomite," "homosexual," and "bisexual," and also since he will go on to feel the need to define words such as "vile" and "reprobate." But you know, clearly you're just on a whole different level of intelligence from myself and the rest of the queers in the Ivy League. I mean, I certainly won't try to offend you by putting you up on our level. I wouldn't want to insult myself by doing that either, to be totally honest.

One question that I have for you, though, concerns the argument that you made about homosexuality being an "unnatural" sin. You argued that homosexuality actually is not part of the sin committed in the stories about sodomy (probably because sodomy is a different thing completely, but you're really not aware of that, I suppose). You argued that it is because it's not something that any person would naturally feel unless they were being punished by God (6:20). So, my question to you is, if it's only a sin that people who are so far from God commit, and if you and your followers are that close to God, then why do you even care about it? It's not something you should worry about if you truly believe that you're a "good Christian" by IFB standards, and you also believe that you're right about how God creates homosexuals by darkening the hearts of non-believers. Yet you continue to point out how "disgusting" homosexuality is (5:50). In my own life experience I've found that generally you don't call something disgusting unless you've got a reason to fear it. And you don't fear things that can't affect or touch you.

I now want to take a moment to highlight the mention you made of your grandmother's margin-notes in her Bible. I love that you read your grandmother's Bible almost as much as I love the fact that she has taken it upon herself to decide that AIDS - a disease that did not actually exist in the human race until long after the Bible was written - is God's magical solution to homosexuality (6:35).  Clearly you did your homework on that one. Obviously God created HIV and AIDS exclusively to punish homosexuals. That's why it's also able to be transmitted through shared needles, giving First Aid without gloves to a carrier with open wounds, and (What's that other way I was thinking of? Oh, right!) childbirth. Gotta stop those damn newborn sodomites - who, by the way, according to you, are not born gay.... But - if they're not born queer, then why are they being burdened with God's perfect punishment for queers? You know, you might want to reconsider this whole stance.

I found your commentary from about 8:00 onward to be both incredibly ironic and really quite upsetting. I found it to be upsetting because your hate speeches had me convinced that I was nothing but trash for years. I spent the better part of my adolescent and young adult life loathing myself for being who I am. However, I also find it really, really ironic (in the driest possible way). You go around preaching about how Godly and Christ-like you are. You consider your followers to be the only ones doing religion right. And yet I happen to know that if your followers' lives behind closed doors were exposed to a public eye, a lot of them would end up arrested and doing hard time, if not worse. I know some "animals who would violate innocent people" (8:10) that sit in your pews several times a week. So, tell me: who are the "stupid animals who need to be taken and destroyed" (9:30), when you really think about it? Because you might want to look in a mirror before answering that question.

Sincerely,
Bee

A Response to the Media's Coverage of the Aurora and Oak Creek Tragedies

For reference, this is the link that sparked the thoughts that lead to the following post: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/08/an-american-tragedy.html

Dear American Reporters,

I recently read an article from The New Yorker about the tragedies in Aurora, Colorado and Oak Creek, Wisconsin - the two massacres that occurred within weeks of each other - entitled "An American Tragedy." I find it to be both very interesting and very telling that the author chose to use the singular in the title rather than plural. After all, it was two tragedies of equal caliber, right? So, why not mention both of them?

I begrudgingly think the real reason only one is referenced in the title of this article, which points out a lot of the flaws I will be pointing out here, is that most of us in America don't actually see them as two equally significant events. In fact, I'd be willing to be that a lot of people don't even know what happened in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. (If you didn't catch the news within a couple days of the tragedy happening, you probably didn't hear about it.) In both of these cities there were several people shot and killed out of pure, cold-blooded hate. As the author of this article points out, though, there were a few key differences to the two shootings. Those differences pretty much boil down to three things: race, religion, and location. The Aurora shooter - a mentally unstable, skinny, white male - came into a crowded, dark movie theater at the premier of a blockbuster film dressed as a super villain. On the other hand, the Oak Creek shooter - a walking stereotype of a testosterone-pumped white supremacist - walked up to a Sikh temple and opened fire on the worshipers, most (if not all) of whom are of South Asian descent.  The Aurora shooting was a spectacle that made seemingly little sense, whereas the Oak Creek massacre was all too quickly dismissed as every-day run of the mill racism and religious intolerance, and was soon forgotten. But, why?

What I see when I look at these two incidents is not the differences between the crime scenes, but the similarities. What I see is Americans in vulnerable situations (darkened movie theaters and houses of worship are, after all, generally safe locations for people to go and let down their guard). I see a sense of security shattering to bits. I see people mourning the loss of their children, parents, siblings, cousins, best friends, teachers, next door neighbors, favorite baristas, that-guy-who-lives-in-my-building, their community members. I see agonizing pain and suffering (both physical and emotional). And most of all, I see an act of heinous violence committed by someone who had every intent of hurting innocent people because they were somehow different from them. Whether that difference was one of class, race, happiness, mental-stability, religion.... it really doesn't matter - you only lash out at people like that because of differences. After all, wars aren't started because two countries agree on everything. These attackers were at war with their communities on an emotional level long before they pulled the triggers.

Now I begin to wonder: am I the only one who thinks this way? Why is it that I heard about the Colorado shooting for weeks after it was over, but had to ask several different people for clarification on what exactly happened at Oak Creek before I gave up and went to the internet? And, speaking of the internet, why is it that when you type the word "aurora" into the Google search bar, it comes up with options such as "aurora shooting" and "aurora tragedy," but typing "oak creek" into the same search bar only gets you advertisements for booking a cabin at camping grounds? Further, why is it that when you type "victims of" into Google, it comes up with two different suggestions for the Colorado shooting, but none for Wisconsin's recent tragedy? Surely Aurora, Colorado was not a place that was bustling with business worthy of global recognition before this shooting occurred, so why is it on the map now? And, more importantly, why isn't Oak Creek?

Honestly, I feel that a big part of the problem is that the media has kind of failed us. American news reporters are far too invested in finding a sensational story that will sell papers and headliner segments. (This is only my opinion, of course; it is certainly not something with which I expect everyone to agree.) America is very much a culture that prides itself on creating opportunity for everyone - but many times that comes with the side-effect of creating a space where it's all too easy to have heightened expectations and feelings of entitlement. Simply put, Americans can be really self-centered and spoiled. We like to understand everything that goes on around us, and because of this we generally surround ourselves with things to which we can relate. Most of us don't go out searching for things that will really shake our core beliefs, for instance. We don't step outside our comfort zones too often. And for many Americans it was far easier to relate to the (exclusively white) victims sitting inside a movie theater than it was to relate to those in a Sikh temple - a foreign religion of which many Americans have probably never heard.

By catering to the spoiled "typical" (white, upper-middle class) American ego, and running with the sensational news story about Aurora, while almost casually brushing the Oak Creek tragedy aside in an out-of-sight-out-of-mind fashion, the media in America has failed us. They've failed us as a nation, they've failed us as a community, and they've certainly failed all the victims of the Oak Creek tragedy who have not gotten the attention they deserve for their brave, horrific, final moments. By failing to shed equal light on such similar events, American reporters have once again fallen into the trap of telling people what they want to hear, instead of what they should be hearing. What Americans want to hear is "we're a forward-thinking nation that needs to band together to stop crazy murders." But what we need to hear is, "we're a more-forward-thinking nation than many that needs to band together to stop the hate that is fueling these crazy murderers."

In closing, all I would ask is that American news reporters wake up and realize that they're the ones we're looking to for our source of what needs changed in America. If we don't know that there's a problem, how can we begin making a plan to fix it? Please stop covering up America's flaws simply because you want your ratings to stay higher than your competitors'. Instead of worrying about selling papers, why don't you try selling positive change instead?

Sincerely,
Bee

A Response to Cynical Cyber Commenters

Note: While this is intended for all cyber cynics who feel the need to anonymously leave trivial, negative comments that don't actually open a discussion or make an argument with sound evidence/proof, I am basing this post off comments from one specific article:  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/07/leland-bobbes-half-drag-makeup-photos_n_1749018.html?ncid=wsc-huffpost-cards-image&utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false

Dear Cyber Cynics,

Before I delve into this letter, please let me first make a clear distinction between the type of cyber cynic to which I am writing, and those with whom I actually have no problem (and, in many cases, even commend).  I am not writing this letter to cyber cynics who use calm, sophisticated language in their posts. I am not writing this to cyber cynics who make logical, well thought-out arguments against that on which they're commenting. I am not writing this to cynics who actually start and engage in (civilized) discussions and debates about the post. I am writing this to cyber cynics who simply write mean, purposefully offensive, degrading comments online with no purpose other than to upset people who support the article/video/post. There is actually a phrase that our modern, plugged-in society has come up with for the type of cyber cynic to which I'm writing: cyber bully. Now that I've made that distinction, on with the rest of the post! 

I recently came across a post on my Facebook feed that was posted on the fan-page of Raja Gemini, one of my personal favorite artists, fashion icons, and performers. The post was a link to an article about a photography spread by Leland Bobbé, in which he captured images of queens with half their faces made up in drag, and the other half out of drag. The photos are absolutely breathtaking. Seeing the two sides of the queens captured in one photo was really spectacular. For me personally, a large part of the draw to drag as an art-form is seeing the incredible transformation through which the artists go, and these photos really emphasize that aspect. 

However, it seems that not everyone who read this article would agree with me. When I went to look in the comments section to see what other peoples' reactions to the article were, I was surprised at how many homophobes took the time to not only read the article and look at the photos, but also to sign in and comment on the article. Many of the comments were very positive, but there were a few that were at the polar opposite end of the spectrum. I'm all for freedom of speech and press, and with the internet now as big of a player in our globalized society, I would absolutely extend those rights to online interactions. That being said, though, there are limits on what people can say and write in the "offline world," and those limitations need to apply to the internet as well. There are, for instance, laws against verbal harassment and abuse. If you were to walk up to someone in school or your workplace repeatedly and tell them that they're "disgusting" and "freak" (in derogatory, serious, non-joking ways), they would probably be able to get you either fired or expelled, and in some cases they'd even be able to file harassment charges against you. Why, then, should your actions online in these cases be any different than they would be in person? Just because you're sitting safely behind your computer and using an anonymous username to post these potentially very hurtful comments doesn't make it okay. And, if you're any kind of a decent person, it probably doesn't make your conscience any quieter when you're laying in bed at night. While there were a lot of really generally negative comments to the effect of "freakshow," or "men should be men - this is disgusting," I'd like to just point out a few personal favorites.

First up is a comment from Username Shakirah Miles, who says "In this society men are just way too feminine and not manly enough to be good heads of the household." First of all, who says that a man needs to be the head of a household? Honestly, I know a lot of "manly men" who were (and still are) absolutely terrible heads of their households. Your machismo-driven nuclear family ideals are outdated, my friend, so you need to get with the times! Besides, that's why we have lesbians like me: to keep the world's balance in check with all those "effeminate men" running around draining it dry of testosterone. (Little known fact: lesbians are actually just human storage containers for the testosterone leached from fabulous gay men in their weekly cleansing ritual. When a gay man wants to become a macho-man again, he and his dyke best friend ride a unicorn - fed on a diet comprising exclusively of glitter and rainbows - through a deep dark wood filled with bears, and when they come out on the other side he will have regained his machismo.)

Next up we have a comment from tcam053 who writes that "It's sickening and dispicable to the female species..." Well, ladies, we've finally done it. We have apparently learned to reproduce on our own without the help of those silly boys and, therefore, become our own separate species. Quick, somebody alert FOX News! I'd like to add that as one of the newly evolved species, "female," I actually find drag to be fascinating, inspiring, and generally marvelous, and would really love to see more of it in the world. Although, I do agree with you on one point tcam053: these are some sickening bitches in these photos! (Werk it, ladies!) 

Username Gumby commented with "These guys got issues." Clearly your grammar has more issues, my friend! Next, please!

Here's a fun comment from Username sweetmomma8101 reading "Who remembers the good old days when men actually wanted to look and act like men? Wasn't that nice? Miss that." Well, unless we're going to go further back than the ancient civilizations of Rome and Greece, I'm pretty sure you actually won't find any culture or society in which cross-dressing and drag had no role. As long as there has been performance art, there have been men dressing up in women's clothing and wearing make-up to portray a specific idea of femininity (as was often required of theater in ancient times since women were not usually allowed to act). I'd also like to ask you: do you have a problem with women wearing jeans? Or sneakers? Or baseball caps? What about t-shirts? All of these clothing items, after all, are staples in pretty much every woman's wardrobe in America despite their traditionally male origins. It's socially acceptable in our culture for women to wear skinny jeans, converse and a t-shirt with her favorite band's logo on it as a form of self-expression. Why can't a man wear funky heels, a hot dress that shows off his fantastic legs, and some sassy make-up as his form of self-expression? 

People really need to chill out when they're sitting alone at home behind their computers. Think about your actions, for goodness sake! I think it's been pretty clearly established that even if you post something without the intention of hurting anyone, degrading, vicious, abusive interactions that happen on the internet actually can deeply affect people. Case and point: Tyler Clementi killed himself because of cyber bullying. He was a successful college student. Besides - you'd better be prepared to deal with quick, witty comebacks if you're going to try to knock the LGBT community on an article about drag, because, honey, we will eat you alive! 

Cheers,

Bee

Response to Homophobic and Transphoic Healthcare Providers

For reference, here is a link to the article I'm blogging about: http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20120809/11402/transgender-cancer-lgbt-discrimination-jay-kallio-obamacare.htm

Dear Homophobic and Transphobic Healthcare Providers,

When I first read this article, I was (to say the very least) appalled. Although, now that I reconsider it, I think that before the "appalled" and "disgusted" reactions came about, my initial reaction was one more of confusion than anything else. I mean, this couldn't possibly be a real article that was written about something that happened in our society, right? We're making so much progress with this whole 'accepting different people' thing, and our doctors and nurses are way ahead of the rest of us, aren't they? I recall thinking that this must have been an outdated article that I was just now seeing, and checking the date only to find that it was posted a few days ago. The very concept that a person would be denied healthcare simply because his "biological body did not match his identification on the form" was just nauseating; it was upsetting not only for the "equality when?" side of things, but also because the fact that such an egregious error was able to occur in our medical facilities is just plain terrifying.

The first thing that I noticed about this was that the supposedly "professional" physician who initially found the tumor in Kallio claims that the reasoning behind his profound lack of professionalism was, as noted above, that he was flustered by the difference between the physical body and the identification on Kallio's form. I have to just call bullshit on that. Why am I jumping so readily to this judgment? I'll tell you: 1) Paperwork errors happen a lot. The first thing that the physician should have done was consult Kallio about his chosen identification and made sure that he indeed did mark the correct box (which is a stupid concept in and of itself, in my opinion, but that's for a different post). 2) As a physician in the 2010s, you should certainly be prepared to come across transgendered individuals. It's something in which the medical profession should be, and in many other cases is, well-versed. 3) The diagnosis was for breast cancer, which (Hello!) can be found in biological men. It's not as if the physician found ovarian cancer in Kallio. If you're going to be shocked by finding breast cancer in a man, you really need to hand in your prescription pad, right now!

The second thing that I notice is that this article was not written about just one solitary case. As it reports, this kind of malpractice (Let's call it what it is, people!) is quite prominent. The chilling example they gave of Tyra Hunter's experience was particularly unsettling; yet, I know that she was just one of many transgendered individuals who has faced such discrimination in our medical facilities today.

The article closes by pointing out that "the [Affordable Care Act] law stops short of requiring insurance coverage, but does require basic respect." Words cannot express how disappointed I am that this sentence is valid enough to be written in a published article. The fact that our society is still able to deny people health insurance because they are transgendered is heartbreaking. Perhaps even more heartbreaking is the fact that we needed to write a law to gain basic respect for a group of people. Respect is not something that should need to be written down in legal terms. It's not something that the judicial system should have to enforce. It's not a legal right, it's a human right. And, furthermore, it's some thing that humans should give willingly; particularly in hospitals and clinics, in situations where the patient is quite literally putting their life in the hands of the medical professionals that work there.

So, to you doctors and nurses out there who think it's totally okay to play the "they checked the wrong box" card when you screw up, please know that it's really, really not. It's not okay to deny health care to people because they confuse you. I know that they're far deeper people than you are, and that they probably have a much better awareness of themselves and the world, but really they're just people like you; it's not that confusing. Trust me, you'll figure it out! A good carpenter never blames their tools, a good physician never blames their paper-work, and a good person never blames their differences. If you're going to deny someone healthcare just because you don't think they identified themselves as the correct gender, then you really should lose yours license and be locked up far, far away from the rest of the world, because quite frankly we're better off without you. Your behavior in cases like Kallio's and Hunter's makes me sick - but if it's all the same to you, I'd rather get care from a doctor who understands what it is to be human, and not just what it means to be a biological man or woman.

Sincerely,
Bee

A Response to Disrespectful Twitter Users

For reference, here's a link to the article about which I'm writing: http://www.japanprobe.com/2012/08/10/racist-tweets-after-u-s-soccer-victory-over-japan-japs-pearl-harbor-trending/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JapanProbe+%28Japan+Probe%29

Dear Tweeters, 

I would like to first begin this letter by saying that I'm not writing to all Twitter Users, but only to those of you who feel that you need tweet offensive slurs in regards to race, gender, religion, sexuality, or any other trivial details of a person's (or group's) life. To those of you who try to maintain respectful attitudes toward your fellow human being on twitter (as well as other social networking sites), I commend you on being a good, kind-hearted, genuine person. It's something that I have been shocked to see is not actually that common anymore. 

This article really opened my eyes to how awful we can be to one another as human beings. Don't get me wrong: I always knew that racism, sexism, religious discrimination, homophobia, audism, and many other forms of discrimination were problems we faced in our supposedly "forward-thinking" society(ies). However, I've always thought of these ideals as only being visible when the bigots were trying to knock the group being discriminated against down a peg or two through victimizing them after they did something well. It's for this reason that I was so shocked by the barrage of racist texts against Japan coming from American twitter users after the US women's soccer gold-medal win in London. I mean, shouldn't we just be happy about a win and call it a day? Well, apparently a lot of these people didn't think so.

The first point that I'd like to make about all of this is that I'm quite certain that a lot of the tweets from this article can be classified as cyber-bullying, which is actually illegal in 49 states. The tweets included the derogatory-inflected slang label "Japs," claims that the US taking gold in the Olympics was "payback for Pearl Harbor," and (most shocking and disgusting of all, in my opinion) comparisons to the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. I'm simply floored by how many people were so ready to jump on the bandwagon of tasteless tweets. Even as a caucasian woman born and raised in America, thereby having no really personal connection to Japan other than on a human-relations level, I was offended by these comments. I actually felt physically sick to my stomach when I read the tweet, "I haven't seen that many japs cry since hiroshima." I just don't understand how people can be so openly close-minded and blatantly intolerant in a society that claims to want equality for all. 

The real kicker for me, though, was the fact that these tweets happened in response to an Olympic sporting event. I mean, this is the Olympics, people! Clearly, those of you sending tweets like this don't understand the point of the Games. The point is not to spread your egotistical view of America's "supremacy" over other nations. It's about global camaraderie. Of course it's about rooting on your country's team, but it's also about sportsmanship. (What kind of sportsmanship are we teaching our youth if we exhibit such poor behavior in response to our team winning a global championship title?) As for those of you who are supposedly making these horrific comments because you believe that "we were robbed in the World Cup," I'd like to kindly ask you to shut the hell up! I'll be the first to admit that  I was disappointed when the US women's team lost the World Cup game in South Africa. However, at the same time I was so happy for Japan. Their country had just suffered from one of the most devastating natural disasters of our lifetime (from which it is still recovering), and if winning the World Cup was what would bring their country a little bit of hope and a reason to celebrate life again, how could I possibly have begrudged them for that accomplishment? 

I know that a lot of you may not have legitimately thought about what you were saying when you sent the tweets about World War II. To put it into perspective for you, I'd like to ask you this: how would you have felt if, when Japan won the World Cup, there were thousands of social networking posts like "This game ended the same way 9/11 did - with all the Americans in tears! Go Japan!!" Based on your readiness to praise the dropping of the atomic bombs and your general disregard for other peoples' lives and cultures, you would have probably been calling the White House requesting missile launchings. So, how can you possibly justify saying that to someone else about their country and culture?! What gives you the right take a nation's suffering and pain from events that happened entire generations ago - meaning that none of the players from either team, nor probably any of you, were alive - and use it to bring them down even further in their already disappointed mood? You're destroying the entire spirit of the Olympic Games, and you're not helping to create a world we should be striving to make - one in which we can share our experiences with each other and exchange cultural differences openly.

So, to those of you who feel the need to post racist comments on social networking sights, please just stop. Throw your phone off a bridge, smash your computer with a sledge hammer, and stay away from iPads and tablets at all times. Nobody of any notability is going to want to read what you have to say. And quite honestly, posts and viewpoints like yours are one of the reasons the rest of the world hates America, so you'd really be helping this country that you claim to love so much by ceasing to have an online existence. When you're ready to play nicely with your fellow human beings, we'll gladly welcome you back to the cyber world, but until then get the hell off the internet - please and thank you! 

Sincerely, 

Bee

A Response to AskMen's Anti-Vegetarian Article

For reference, here's a link to the article: http://www.askmen.com/money/how_to_400/477_how-to-argue-against-vegetarians.html

Dear AskMen,

I'm really unsure of where to begin. Should I begin with the horrendously chauvinistic advertisements on your page which include degrading, objectifying photos of women and topics such as "2012 Olympics Sexiest Countries," "Top 99 Hottest Women," and "How To: Break Up With A Girl"? (Real men only care about women's looks, right?) Maybe a better place to start would be with the disgustingly cheesy tag-line "Become a Better Man." (Join us and you, too, can be an over-testosteroned sexist!) Perhaps I should begin with the article's implications that it is unacceptable for men, themselves, to be vegetarians. (Who doesn't love a healthy dose of hegemonic gender role reinforcement?) At any rate, the purpose of this post is really to comment only on the article entitled "How To: Argue Against Vegetarians," so I'll do my best to put your other offenses out of thought.

I must commend you on your ability to jump right into making offensive, generalized statements toward a group about which you clearly know nothing. Your readiness to label vegetarians as "righteous," and your assumption that every vegetarian and vegan lives solely to tell others how to live is almost as shallow the research that went into your article. Your claims that vegetarians and vegans must supplement their diets with Vitamin D, B12, and iron is almost laughably wrong. These nutrients can easily be acquired through a variety of fortified plant-based foods, as well as many nuts and legumes. [Vegan Nutrition] Omega-3 fatty acids are also found in a variety of plants: English walnuts, chic-peas, broccoli, kale, chard, cauliflower, and tons of others [Dietary Sources]. Further, your claims that vegetarians and vegans have weaker bones, "attributed to the fact that many vegetarians and vegans consume very little calcium due to the limitations of their diets," is like saying that people who choose not to shop at Office Max can't buy paper - it's simply not true. Most healthy vegans and vegetarians are easily able to get their daily recommended amounts of calcium from things like tahini (a common ingredient in hummus - a staple in a vegan diet), kale, broccoli, soy-based products of all kinds, and many other staple vegetables and fruits [Mangels]. Granted, I do recognize that you may not have actually been aware that any of these are edible - believe it or not, you actually can eat these green things called vegetables and get nutrients from them instead of from popping processed dietary supplement pills. The final thing I have to say on the nutritional note is: before you start throwing around accusations of personality disorders, I think you might want to check yourself for one - although, unfortunately, I suppose that arrogance and self-inflicted ignorance are not technically personality disorders.

You next moved on to an argument against moral reasons for being a vegan or vegetarian. I'd like to first point out that if your article is read by anyone who follows any monotheistic religion (be it Judaism, Christianity, Islam, or any other religion that believes in one, and only one, deity), your statement about "god's creatures" would be incredibly offensive. If you're going to make a generalized 'religious reasons' statement, you should at least know that people who would argue that reason in the first place would never in a million years use the lower-case version of the word god, as it's considered very sacrilegious. A second thing that I'd like to point out in regards to this statement is that I actually don't know very many vegans who believe in the God that you tried to reference. Now let's move on to your argument that "plants are living organisms that respond to stimuli like gravity, light and touch." Well, guess what - besides the "living organisms" part, so are rocks. If I drop a rock, it responds to gravity. Many rocks will alter their color, or sparkle, or have a variety of reactions based on exposure to sunlight. If I move a rock, it has responded to my touch. So, I guess you'd better re-think that apartment you were going to rent. Also, if you're really going to try to make this moral counter-argument you'd sure as hell be better to get the response that most people who are vegetarian or vegan for moral reasons follow their diets because what they actually have a problem with is supporting the killing of beings with a conscience controlled by the synaptic reaction chains begun by ATP production during digestion and resulting in an awareness of what is happening in the world. This would not actually include plants [Khakh]. And further, you must understand that the degree to which people follow diets based on their moral beliefs varies with what their morals allow. There is no set "prototype" for what you eat if you are vegan for moral reasons. It's just simply naive to think that way.

As for your argument on the "humane ways" that exist to kill animals for food, I offer you this scenario. From each continent I will randomly select 10 households with couples expecting to have babies in the next week. I will take all 60 infants (since I doubt that Antarctica has any, much less 10, households expecting babies to be born) and split them into two groups: 5 infants from each continent will go into Group A and 5 will go to Group B. Group A will contain 30 infants, all to be raised in the same playpen with one caretaker for all of them. Group B, on the other hand, will be raised in a luxurious country estate with a separate nursery and two caretakers for every child (one for during the day and one for during the night). One year from now Group A will be put to death by having their throats slit. Group B will be put to death on the same day by lethal injection while they are sleeping. For which group would you like to volunteer your next child?

While I admit that the rest of your article did use somewhat nearly factual information - you did use research from recorded and cited sources of some amount of credibility, no matter how flawed the logic you used or questionable the twisting of the sources - it is in the environmental arguments section in which you really outdid yourself in presenting false information as support for poorly construed arguments. I present to you, Exhibit A: "These dangerous chemicals also frequently leach into water supplies where they can cause harmful neurological effects when consumed by humans and animals alike." This is true, and is also the reason that the EPA controls the usage of these pesticides, thereby limiting their exposure to human drinking water sources [Regulating Pesticides]. Moving on! Exhibit B: "Speaking of water, the cultivation of vegetables requires vast amounts of it, which in turn can cause water shortages and, in extreme cases, drought." Brace yourself, because honeychild, I grew up on a dairy farm and there is a lot that needs to be said about this disgustingly false statement! It is an established fact that an average dairy cow produces about 8 gallons of milk per day while using about 12,450 gallons of water per day. That's just a single cow! Most dairy farms in North America have herds numbering from five hundred to a couple thousand. That's a little over 1500 gallons of water used for every gallon of milk produced. (If you're interested, I'll post the actual number crunching part of this after the sources at the bottom.) To produce one pound of beef is roughly the same amount of water per animal per day. Compared to the 45 gallons of water that you put out to make a pound of traditional garden vegetables, the amount of water used to produce milk (nearly 34 times the amount to produce vegetables) is an absolute atrocity. While producing eggs and poultry does use less water than dairy and beef (after all, they're smaller animals), it still takes about 10 times as much water to produce these products as it does for vegetables [Bluejay]. What it comes down to is that your claim that water shortages are caused by vegetable farms and orchards is completely bogus. I can tell you from personal experience that when rural areas start to get low on water over a dry summer, it's not their vegetable stands or their orchards that worry about business - it's the dairy farmers that get nervous.

On to Exhibit C: "Fruit and vegetable farms also harm the environment through the burning of agricultural waste and the production of oxide emissions from nitrogen fertilizer." About this I have three things to say. First, in the Western world dairy farms not only produce the fertilizer you're condemning here, but also use the same exact fertilizer on their own fields for the crops they grow to feed their livestock. Second, the amount of waste that gets burned on a dairy farm, again I am telling this from 18 years of personal experience, is ludicrous! Third, dairy and meat farms in North America are responsible for nearly all the continent's atmospheric methane emissions (as well as third only to automobiles and factories in carbon dioxide emissions, and second in production of atmospheric hydrogen), and serve as the second highest source of global methane production. Atmospheric methane, it just so happens, is not only one of the biggest contributors to global warming, but is also one of the shortest lived greenhouse gases in our atmosphere (about a third as long as carbon dioxide). This means that it is one of the few greenhouse gases about which we would be able to do something and actually see a direct result or change in the atmosphere's make-up in our lifetime [Vallis]. This brings me to Exhibit D: "vegetarians produce more gas than meat-eaters." Honey, even if that is true, the source of your steak produces so much more than any person ever could that it's not able to be compared. (No, really! The units in which human gas emissions are measured and the units in which cattle emissions are measured have never been compared because the difference is so great that only a fool would even try to argue that people have any affect on the atmosphere in comparison to our bovine counterparts [Vallis].)

In conclusion, all I can really say is this: you need to check your attitude, your sources, and your ego! It's absolutely absurd that you would assume that every vegetarian or vegan is "righteous" or running around with the ulterior motive to change the world's mind about dietary practices. Furthermore, you really should never try to make such poorly constructed arguments in regards to the environmental impact of vegetable agriculture versus dairy and meat farming around someone who was raised in a self-sufficient household (meaning that we grew all our own vegetables and fruits) that lies within a dairy farming region where people are outnumbered by livestock 20:1. (Trust: It's really not going to get you anywhere other than shamefully put in your place.) Finally, it may be that salads never won you any friends, but that's probably because while the people were eating your salad, you were busy opening your big mouth to say something as unintelligent as the contents of the article I just read.  

Sincerely, 

Bee

P.S. Since you so kindly listed your sources (in a format that was not anywhere near acceptable for a professionally researched article, might I add), I will gladly return the favor:  

Sources:

Bluejay, Michael. "Google_ad_client="pub-7948311637472652";google_ad_slot="4405980076";google_ad_width=336;google_ad_height=280;Vegetarianism and the Environment." Want to save the Environment? Go Vegetarian. Vegetarian Guide, 2012. Web. 10 Aug. 2012. <http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/environment.html>.

"Dietary Sources of Omega-3 Fatty Acids." DHA/EPA Omega-3 Institute. DHA/EPA Omega-3 Institute, 2012. Web. 11 Aug. 2012. <http://www.dhaomega3.org/Overview/Dietary-Sources-of-Omega-3-Fatty-Acids>.

Falk, Dean E. "Fresh Water Needs for Dairy Farms." Fresh Water Needs for Dairy Farms. One Plan, n.d. Web. 10 Aug. 2012. <http://www.oneplan.org/Stock/DairyWater.asp>.

Khakh, Baljitt, Daniel Gittermann, Debora Cockayne, and Allison Jones. "ATP Modulation of Excitatory Synapses into Interneurons." N.p., 23 July 2010.

Kostigen, Thomas M. "Environment / Environmental Policy." Everything You Know About Water Conservation Is Wrong. Discover Magazine, 28 May 2008. Web. 10 Aug. 2012. <http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jun/28-everything-you-know-about-water-conservation-is-wrong/>.

Mangels, Reed. "Calcium in the Vegan Diet." -- The Vegetarian Resource Group. The Vegetarian Resource Group, 28 Mar. 2006. Web. 10 Aug. 2012. <http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/calcium.htm>.

 "Regulating Pesticides." EPA. Environmental Protection Agency, 12 June 2012. Web. 10 Aug. 2012. <http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/regulating/>.

 Vallis, Geoffrey K. "Chapter 3." Atmospheric and Oceanic Fluid Dynamics: Fundamentals and Large-scale Circulation. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. 43-56. Print.

 "Vegan Nutrition." Vegan Nutrition & Healthy Vegan Diets. The Vegan Society, n.d. Web. 10 Aug. 2012. <http://www.vegansociety.com/lifestyle/nutrition/>.

CRUNCHED NUMBERS FOR DAIRY FARM WATER USAGE:
1 cow drinks 20 gallons of water per day
1 cow requires about 30 gallons of water per day for sanitation purposes needed to keep a farm running
1 cow eats about 80 pounds of wheat-based feed every day
Growing 1 pound of wheat-based feed takes about 155 gallons of water
155 gallons per pound x 80 pounds per cow per day = 12,400 gallons per cow per day
12,400 gallons per cow per day + 20 gallons per cow per day + 30 gallons per cow per day = 12,450 gallons per cow per day