Bearded Dragons

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogona

I recall that when I joined the Army, one of the very first realities of Army life was that I could not have a beard. Now granted, with my genetic background, I could not really grow a beard of any substance. In fact, I took advantage of the privilege of being able to have a mustache as soon as I finished Basic Training. In truth, it really didn’t work for me, but I still kept that affectation for 30 years until recently I decided to ditch it for a much younger looking clean shaven styling. 

Thus I was surprised when I read this article where it looks as if the Army has decided to relax the beard restrictions based on ‘sincerely held religious beliefs. The examples cited point specifically to Sikhs with beards and turbans

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/army-issues-new-rule-granting-religious-accommodations-turbans-beards-hijabs-n703556

and conservative Muslim women with hijabs.

The article is slightly disingenuous. Sikhs have been able to wear beards and turbans since 2010. The change in the rules really just moves the authority to authorize alternate styles down to the unit commander. No, the real change not highlighted here is the ability of conservative Muslim women to wear hijabs; something that has never been granted before.  It remains to be seen if the regulation change will allow women to go full beekeeper suit (burka) or not. It seems to be a breach is security for soldiers to not be able to see the faces of their fellow soldiers. I am not sure what role a conservative Muslim woman can fulfill in the service where they are restricted from being seen in public without their spouse, but I really could care less what they wear.

That being said, I had to do some googling on the beard thing. I recalled that there was some logical explanation for why we had to shave, but I couldn’t recall the context. It turns out that we had to shave because the gas masks of that era would not seal properly if you had a beard. The regulation can into effect about the time of the Vietnam War, which makes sense as that is when those masks were put into service. I remember having to lug those mask around everywhere with me. They were a major pain, and I’d bet they were probably the most often lost piece of field gear ever. Here’s what they looked like:

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/m50-gas-mask

Here’s what a modern gas mask looks like:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M50_joint_service_general_purpose_mask

Frankly, I don’t see much a difference between the old and the new around the area where the masks seals at the bottom of the face where a beard would be grown. I suspect these mask were not designed to accommodate a person wearing a beard. I wonder if in the event of a gas attach, beard wearing soldiers will be required to quickly shave, then don their masks. Either that, or they are assumed an acceptable casualty loss. Alternatively, they will be issues ‘beard friendly’ MOPP gear. In that case, the Army will have to stock the type of masks that works with a beard.

Another question is just where the ‘sincerely held belief’ line stops. I mean these guys:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_Dynasty

wear beards and, as anyone knows who watches the show, are deeply religious, and have very strong feelings about men wearing beards. In their culture, it is almost the norm and men who are clean shaven are viewed with suspicion. Will the new Army regulations take their sincerely held beliefs into account? Probably not, but of course they are not the demographic these changes are targeted by.

Hoof Beats and Zebras

You are all familiar with this right, the teaching analogy used by doctors? They are told “When you hear hoof beats, don’t think of zebras.” The point is that when they look at a patient, they should not immediately jump to the most obtuse malady that fits the symptoms, but should first try out the more obvious diagnosis. It’s a pretty good analogy that applies well to all situations that require critical thinking. 

If I had to pick a profession where critical thinking plays a major role, I would guess that news reporting falls pretty high on that scale. In general, I think that reporting is probably a pretty straight forward job. You gather up the facts, organize them in a way that makes sense to the consumer, and then present them. The main problem with news though is there is so much of it. So an editor has to decide what information is most likely to grab their audience’s attention, and what stories will hold it. Furthermore, the editors also have to decide how much of a story will fit in the window of time they have to present their news. It’s probably a very difficult job. Like most jobs, those that do it well are probably well compensated.

Thus we come to this story about a brutal attack on a special needs white guy attacked by a four black gentleman in Chicago. Now I am guessing that this kind of thing happens a lot, but what makes it even more heinous, beyond a special needs guy being on the receiving side of the assault, is that fact that they choose to broadcast the beating on Facebook. A note the here to denizens of Facebook: perhaps you should worry less about policing ‘fake news’ and immodesty on your site, and a little more about censoring the monsters that use your facilities to popularize this kind of behavior… just saying..

The larger story here is the editing that this story received in first the AP, and then later in the nightly news. If this had been 4 white guys beating up a retarded black guy, yelling ‘F*** Obama’, I am betting that it would have gotten widespread unedited coverage. Instead, what the monsters were saying was omitted, as well as the races of the individuals. There’s probably going to be a lot of ink on the conservative web sites about this, but I imagine the traditional press will continue sticking their ink stained fingers in their ears and humming ‘we shall overcome’ until the furor over this dies down.

But in that there is hope. Where the traditional press will not cover this, the conservative media will. The incident is getting noticed, and people – a lot of people – know what happened. This speaks volumes about the increasing divide between the traditional media and the ‘new media’. I for one have not watched a new presentation on TV in years, and have not read or purchased a newspaper in over 15 years. I suspect that anyone reading this has similar news consuming habits. In fact, I’d say that a majority of people now get their news from ‘alternative’ sources, making traditional news sources increasingly irrelevant. So while their failing to inform us of the real story behind this attack is disturbing, it really doesn’t matter to the vast majority of us. We know what happened, we know why it happened, and we will live accordingly.

Back To Standing On My Head

For those of you that haven’t heard this joke here you go:

This guy dies and because he voted Democrat his whole life, he was sent to Hell. Satan met him at the gates of Hell and told he would give him a tour of hell and he would have to pick the form of his eternal punishment. They first came to a room where demons were dipping the damned in vats of boiling oil. Once their bodies had burnt away, they were pulled out and became whole again, only to be dipped in again. The next room had the damned being skinned alive. Once all their skin was removed, they became whole and the process started all over. The man told Satan that those looked awful and didn’t he have anything else? Satan thought about it a bit, then told him that there was one more room he might qualify for. Upon entering the room, the man noticed all the people in the room were drinking coffee and standing knee deep in raw sewage. The man thought to himself, “Well this doesn’t look too bad”. He told Satan that this was the room that he wanted to be in. Satan handed him off to the head demon for the room and left. Shortly thereafter the head demon blew a whistle and shouted “Ok, coffee breaks over, everybody back to standing on your head!”

And thus marks the end of my Christmas break and return to regular work. I hope everyone had a good vacation and wish everyone the best in the New Year!