Dear Myself,

You still haven't learned that you are to 'Never Again Volunteer Yourself'?! I know the offer was couched in terms of a 'safe, fun, learning experience' but are you out of your mind? You have tests next week! You're not feeling so great! You have a roommate moving in this weekend! Your room is a disaster area! Besides which, your stuff isn't ready and you'll probably spend all weekend in a haze of confusion, only to come back in time for PT bright and early. What are you thinking?
...
I see.
....
Argh. Fine. Whatever. But I told you here first that it wasn't a brilliant idea.
.....

Sincerely,
Me, Myself and I.

Anonymous Internet and Politics

I was listening to the radio yesterday and the man being interviewed was talking about that horrible crime committed by the insane young man in Arizona. The interviewee laid the blame less at the feet of the man who pulled the trigger, and more at the feet of those who 'used inflammatory language' and 'the anonymous internet hate-machine' saying tings like "I hope the zombie armies aren't about to come out of the woodwork.'
While I agree with him that teen pop culture has an unhealthy taste for zombies, vampires and gang violence, I was worried by his take on the internet- specifically anonymity on the internet.
Regarding the shooting in Arizona. I'm pretty sure the guy who did it was either off
his meds or undiagnosed and not taking meds. That being said I can return to the issue of anonymity.
I am part of a generation that has grown up with personal computers and the internet. It is not news to me. My brother is more technologically adept than I am, but I am still able to do everything I need/want to on the internet and I can make it look relatively easy. The man who was being interviews was from what is being called the 'technology immigrant' generation. He's like the guy who comes over from the mother country and learns just enough English to do simple transactions- buy groceries, find the restroom, say please/thank you.

I'm like someone whose parents came over from the mother country when I was still tiny and said parents were rich enough to get me into a good (non-bilingual) school, and I'm conversant in both languages. I can talk to the old people at my church and we understand each other 90% of the time (they lose me for a bit when they talk about things like canning fruit at home). I can also talk to people my age who've grown up in this country and I can understand them 90% of the time (though they lose me when they start talking about pop culture references from their own childhood).

The point of this rather over-extended analogy is that I have grown up with a different expectation of what the internet should be like. My friends and I were pissed as all get out when youtube started taking down videos with copyrighted material in them. We were used to being able to share media like that freely. Whether or not we should be able to is a topic for a different post. More to the point right now is the anonymity. People have many personas online, legitimate, deliberately cultivated personas. For example- you log onto your professional email and your personal email in the morning and you read your emails. After that, you sign in with a different screen name to your blog and write a post. After that, you go on Amazon to do some shopping, with a different screen name. Maybe you belong to a gaming forum or two and you have a screen name for each. That's easily six different screen names. Your professional one will probably be your right name or some clever play on your right name. Your personal one might be more flippant- perhaps referring to some hobby you have. Your blog screen name will probably be significant to you in some other way. While your Amazon screen name might be the same as your professional email address, Amazon studies what you buy and tailors its suggestions to you. It could be said that the website gets an idea of who you are- and that can be pretty amusing when you buy some really unrelated things! The gaming forums are the ones where I think it is most likely that who people think you are will have the least resemblance to who you really are. This, at least when it has happened to me, has been a combination of vagueness on my own part and a tendency of my fellow gamers to make assumptions based on who they are.
Is this wrong? No. My fellow gamers don't need to know my age, gender, profession, state of residence or anything else personal about me. All they need to know is that I like the same kinds of games that they do and that I'll be on at more-or-less this time a few days a week.
And I can't help it if they make assumptions about my age, gender, profession, state of residence or anything else personal about me based on stuff like "I enjoy reading history and historical fiction, I love cold weather and sudoku."

Sorry this post is a bit rambly, but I left to do other things and I can't seem to find the thread of it again... Anyway. Two more things I'll add, then I'll quit for the day.
First, I recently saw a video of an attack on a WoW funeral. No, it wasn't someone's character who had died, it was the player. Her friends decided to hold a memorial service for her online and it was attacked by a bunch of idiots. I know those people who were responsible later said things like "We wouldn't do something like that in real life" but the fact that they would do it _online_ because that makes it okay is not right. I also feel that was a failure on the part of the game designers to not have some kind of safe-zone or weapons/magic-free sanctuary where people could peacefully gather. Conduct online matters, if we don't all want to be labeled as part of the 'zombie army'.

Second, I have a confession to make. Once, years ago, I did use my internet anonymity 'for evil' as it were. Someone I knew had screwed up their own life considerably and was making great strides to screwing up the life of one my acquaintances. I was fed up with this person and I found their live journal. I read it, and I saw exactly how much of a mess their life was. If I'd been older I hope I would have been able to see that this person needed professional help. As it was, I was still so angry with the individual in question, that between what I knew from the lj and what I knew from real life, I had ammunition. So I commented anonymously on their live journal. I said some very hurtful and perfectly true things. I dug my nails into half-healed wounds and I ripped.
I shouldn't have done that. I know that now. I have no excuse.

Don't blame 'the internet hate machine' or 'the zombie army'. Blame people, poor decision making and human nature.

Nota bene: I hate the grammatical corkscrews that keeping someone gender-anonymous has caused but deal with it. For the record, I haven't seen or heard from the person in question for seven years and I hope I never will. I am praying for this person.

Resa-whatnow?

No. I'm not going to do it and you can't make me.
No resolutions will be posted on this blog. I won't say that there is no point in resolutions because they tend to fall apart after the first month (if it even takes that long). Resolutions work for some people and not for others. And some resolutions don't work for anyone. Anything incredibly drastic or life-altering is pretty unlikely to end up fulfilled at the end of a year. Anything vague enough can be wiggled out of. And honestly, when you don't even know if you're going to wake up in the morning, it seems a bit presumptuous to go around making resolutions.

Okay. Those are my thoughts on resolutions. I realise I'm probably in the minority on all of that. But whatever.

I hereby resolve one thing though- before I go on any transatlantic jaunts, I will make damn sure my room is clean. I am coming back to a clean, orderly, well-put-together room. This will happen if it kills me getting there and sometimes it feels like it just might.

In other news, I saw Tron tonight. It wasn't spectacular. It was very flashy and I believe that was 95% of the point.... so much for the other 5%. I wish someone would pay me to write a movie script...

Merry-Christmas-and-Happy-Feast-of-St-Steven-the-Protomartyr!

There, now I'm not behind! Hurrah!
So what can I write about that hasn't been written about regarding Christmas? Pretty much nothing. So, in the absence of new subject material, I will go after some older material, after I air one grievance-
The lyrics of 'In Dulci Jubilo' are FAR superior to 'Good Christian Friends Rejoice'. It is NOT 'hard Latin' and it has substance, where 'Good Christian Friends Rejoice' is a fuzzy bit of marshmallow fluff. Only not even that because marshmallow fluff is kind of tasty (while being simultaneously disgusting- think of how much sugar that is!!). I don't think it's a huge stretch to say that lame hymns are a contributing factor to people leaving the church. Why? Because I've found people remember bits of songs far more easily than say, the Eucharistic prayers. I've found myself randomly humming bits of the Divine Liturgy and I've quoted parts of it (sometimes while singing it) to people who ask me about 'my faith and what it means to me'. If you have good solid doctrine in your hymns and not just fluff, people may find it easier to understand aspects of their faith. What a thought, right?
Okay, rant over. Promise.
So Christmas in the vicinity of Ft. SINYF. It's SNOWING! What the heck? Not complaining, just shocked! I thought it wasn't supposed to snow here! The locals seem for the most part to have taken the smart course of action for them which is to stay indoors and cower. This strange precipitation from the sky might be a harbinger of nuclear winter or something. I mean, it's sooo weird... It's like rain but not!
Seriously people? It's not even accumulating. You don't get to complain about snow unless there's two feet of it outside, you are completely snowed in with intermittent power, and your mom decides to make 'colonial herb bread' with the last of the food in the pantry. Then and only then may you complain that said bread tastes like sand and was probably the sole reason for a high mortality rate in the colonies.
Yesterday and Christmas Eve, I had people over for food/games/socializing. The food was good if I do say so myself as the person who bought and prepared almost all of it. The exception was a strange sort of salmon quiche made by one of my guests with the salmon I bought but didn't have time to prepare. The rest of said salmon will probably be my dinner tonight. Yum!
So what else... we played a rather outdated game of Outburst which was still fun, even though we had to remove from play cards like "Famous Baseball Pitchers 1960-1990", and "College Football Team Nicknames". This second was more due to the guests than the age of the game. On the whole, we are not sports fans. That would be far, far too normal. What is normal anyway? Why should I care about sports? I don't know any of the athletes personally. I feel a sort of... not quite patriotism, but I guess a sort of back-yard nationalism... ooh that sound bad too. Um... micronation-sentimentality... No, that won't do either. Regional pride sounds daft. Er...
You know, that feeling about a geographic region that you either currently inhabit or have inhabited or have relatives from, that you feel a sort of fondness for. You'd like to go back and vacation there, maybe even live there, but you can't say truthfully that you're FROM there. Whatever.
Anyway. When did this get to be about sports? Sorry... back to party stuff. I think everyone had a good time. I'm not much for hosting parties. I mean, there was a housewarming party ages ago, and then this. And I forgot so many things that I meant to do or get before it started. Planning a party is complicated. I think it requires more free time and energy than I actually had. But all things considered, it was not bad. I think people enjoyed themselves and that's really the main thing.
All right, now I'll turn to a more serious thing. Today is the feast of St. Stephen the Protomartyr, and according to the New Rite, also the feast of the Holy Family, more on that later.
St. Stephen was the first martyr, hence the title protomartyr. It struck me today that this is pretty interesting. I mean, there were twelve apostles and St. Stephen was 'just' a deacon. You'd think that one of the apostles would be the protomartyr- maybe St. Peter because he had a history of doing rash things (hacking off an ear?) and saying rash things ("I'll never deny you!"). You could just picture St. Peter saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at the right time and getting martyred for it. But it was this other guy, St. Stephen instead. So what do we know about him? Not a whole lot, I don't think. He understood that Jesus was the son of God, he was a deacon, he was tried by the Jewish religious court and sentenced to death for blasphemy ("God forbid that God should have a son..."). St. Paul acted as a coat-stand at his martyrdom, not actually getting his hands dirty in this instance but complicit. Did the memories of that stoning come back to haunt him during his conversion experience? Did St. Paul's temporarily sightless eyes see a young man dying a terrible death for the truth?
Looking a little further ahead on the calendar, we can see the feast of Holy Innocents. I love to think of them as Jesus's honor guard, his _comitatus_ (the Old English sense of the word, nothing to do with Hungarian counties or Bulgarian administrative units).

People want to celebrate the joy of Christmas and Christ's birth, but if you leaf ahead a little, as it were, you can see that it's not going to be all eggnog and presents. It's going to get very, very bad. Innocent people will die for the crimes of existing and telling the truth. But when it's bad, think about Christmas and Christ's birth. He was the only one who was ever born to die, to set us free, to open the gates of Heaven for us. With Him, our suffering and even our deaths will not be in vain.

NB: Yes, I know, some people move St. Stephen's feast to the 27th. I still say it's the 26th, because I think Boxing Day is lame. All right?

Additional NB: Perhaps this should have been several posts instead of one large post? Thoughts?

DADT Repeal: Rant

So much to say, so little inclination to actually write....argh. Okay, here goes...

Regarding DADT, its recent repeal and the implications of aforementioned repeal

I wish I could give some people at the highest levels of my chain of command a small piece of my mind. I wish I could give them a deck-plate view (I used deck-plate therefore I am steeped in Navy traditions..), but they clearly aren't interested in getting it. Not once in all the media hype and coverage surrounding this 'historic' event that I have seen, has anyone interviewed a literate, currently-serving member of the armed forces who is opposed to the repeal of DADT.
On the whole, the armed forces have been portrayed as anywhere from apathetic to whole-heartedly enthusiastic about an instant repeal of DADT...
To my fellow servicemembers who approve of the repeal: think of the GMTs, people. If NOTHING else, think of the hours of your life that you will never get back doing GMTs (sensitivity training/annual training/'awareness' training for you civilian readers). Don't we already have enough GMTs to do?
If that doesn't motivate you, little will.

Here's a thought, Washington and Assorted Brass- the reason why you didn't get most of those surveys you sent out back is because the vast majority of us are too damn busy doing our jobs to fill out anything that won't directly affect our pay, housing or access to food. You think I'm joking but I'm not. If you REALLY wanted to know what everyone thought, you'd send that damn survey to every single servicemember out there and make it MANDATORY to return it. 100% contact. We do that with NMCRS donation forms every year. It can be done. You won't do it though, because the news will be depressing. I heard somewhere that about forty percent of Marines surveyed said they won't re-up. I'd say probably half that number are not in a financial position to decide that- but that their numbers will be made up for by people who haven't yet realized the full impact that the repeal of DADT will have.

Here's what I want and what I won't get- I want to get out and keep my bonus money and my GI bill because I signed up for a different Navy. People who disagree with my point of view may say "Get out, we can't get rid of your bigoted kind fast enough."
My answer? I have some very specialized skills that I'm taking with me as I leave. To train up my replacement will take you two years, minimum. My departure will impact mission readiness. But if it was free pass to get out, I know I wouldn't be the only one to take it.

But that won't happen. I'll grind my teeth and fulfill my contractual obligation. I'll be damned if I re-up though.

Now I'm done shooting my mouth off.
Bring it on.

What class today felt like

Sweaty palms, clenched toes (of all things), sloshy stomach, aching head, ringing ears, knotted chest- no deep breaths, hyper-awareness of every sound, smell of fear, stiff back and neck.
Worse than thesis semester? Yup. Worse than previous school? Yup. 4-5 weeks left to go, three tests next week? Yup.

Happy St. Nicholas Day!

Happy feast of St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, Defender of Orthodoxy, Wonder-worker, and Holy Hierarch! He is the patron saint of children, Russia, sailors, the Navy, archers, thieves, students, and the cities of Aberdeen, Amsterdam, Barranquilla, Bari, Beit Jala, Fribourg, Huguenots, Liverpool, Siggiewi, and Lorraine.
He also punched Arius and we've got the icons to prove it!

St. Nicholas is a truly awesome saint. According to something I read, in life he was only about five foot tall and may have had a broken nose (I wonder if Arius punched him back...) yet his generosity has been remembered for a very long time now. In his memory and in honor of his name-day, I brought lots of chocolate for my class. We're having a tough week. We have a big scary test tomorrow and another one tomorrow. I'll be hitting up the Wonderworker of Myra with my prayers for the octave after his feast!

In other news, class has been extended into next week. Argh. etc.