WTF World 12: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repealed and All My Children Is into Its Last Week
There are a few things going on in the world today that I want to talk about, which is a nice change of pace from having to scour the internets for subjects that are bout a) topical (like topical ointments) and b) interesting enough for me to read about them. Not today though, today I actually had 3 topics in my head before I even sat down to the keyboard to hammer this bitch out. In this case, I’m using the term bitch to mean this definition:
Slang . a convict who is in a homosexual relationship and/or dominant relationship willingly or unwillingly in the prison setting: The new inmate was immediately forced to be the bitch of the prison’s top dog.
I, of course, am the prison’s top dog, and the WTF World column is my willing homosexual partner.
With that absolutely perfect segue I move into my first item: Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is no longer the official position of the American military regarding homosexuality its ranks. You see, it used to be the case that if you were gay and in the army you didn’t tell anybody about it, and in turn, the military would not ask you about it. Seems sort of harmless at first, but then you sit down and think about it and you realize that you’re preventing people from telling the truth and forcing them to lie about who they are. The policy is basically saying you should be ashamed of your sexual orientation and that your best course of action should be to hide it. Worse, if you were openly gay, they wouldn’t let you in the army.
That’s right, your sexual orientation would dictate whether or not you can fight for your country. Now, I don’t know a ton of people willing to fight for their country personally and honestly, that sort of dedication is hard to come by. What the fuck does who you want to have sex with have to do with it? Short answer? Nothing at all. Long answer? Well, still nothing. Sort of. Maybe a little something.
The part I like about the repeal is that it allows openly gay men and women to join the military if they so choose. The part I dislike about it is that the military can be a terrible fucking place full of scary as shit people. You know what hazing is right? You think that won’t happen to the tenth degree when some narrow minded asshole drill sergeant gets his first openly gay recruit? I mean, I hope it doesn’t. I really hope it doesn’t. I guess I’m just a pessimist. The important part here is that the person can now do what they choose and no longer need to hide who they are. Hopefully just another step in the right direction of the long, long walk humanity is taking against reversing discrimination.
In other news, All My Children is coming to an end this week. At least, on television. It’s going to be an online only show at some point in the future. The only reason I know this is because I’ve been stealing soap opera episode descriptions from TV Guide for the main page descriptions of our strips over at 9to5 (illustrated). The only reason I’m sharing this with you know is because I want you to know how many episodes of this fucking show there have been. I also want you to know that Susan Lucci has played Erica Kane for 40 years. How many episodes? Everyone talks about how long and epic Dr Who is right? Who has 781 episodes. That’s a lot. All My Children’s gotta be double that right? Triple? Five times? Ten times? Keep going. All My Children has had, wait for it, 10 712 episodes when it wraps this Friday. That’s ridiculous.
