vituperation

Hello Fred,

Someone on a message board posted a hyperlink to your Islam entry and the women went off on a tangent. Needless to say, most of them don’t believe the pictures are real and that things like that are actually happening in the world.

Most everyone believes you are a racist asshole and that you hate Muslims.

So, instead of assuming, I thought I’d go straight to the source and ask you if that was the message you were conveying.

Thank you for your time.
XXXX

Dear XXXX,

Thanks for your email. While it can definitely be argued that I’m an asshole, and some people probably automatically believe I’m a racist because I’m from Alabama, it would be a mighty hard point to argue that I’m a racist asshole over the Islam entry since Islam is a religion and not a race.

If the people who made the accusation that I’m a racist think I’m talking about Arabs (nothing’s quite as ironically funny as being accused of being a racist by people who distinguish everything by race, no?), I’m not. Cases in point: Chechen Muslims aren’t Arabs. Neither is John Mohammed, the Washington sniper from a couple of years ago.

The point of the entry is this: we’re being told one thing, and witnessing another. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that there are millions upon millions of Muslims just like you and me, wanting to get through the day, living their lives and doing what’s right in a peaceful and harmonious way, but until those millions speak out against what the minority (and apparent leadership) are doing and saying, the face of Islam that the world sees is going to be reflected in those pictures.

As to editing pictures to create dead children, blown-up people, and whatnot, I’ve got better things to do, like hiking and kayaking.

I’ve done a couple of other entries similar to the recent one, offsetting pictures and quotes. The entry for May 10, 2004, addresses the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse allegations (maybe that one’ll get me called an anti-American asshole), and the March 12, 2004 entry deals with the issue of gay rights (since all the quotes in that one are from the Bible, maybe it’ll get me labelled an antichrist asshole).

In any case, I hope that clears things up a bit. Hope you’re having a terrific weekend!

Fred

"That’s a lot of magnets," the appliance repairman said, nodding at our refrigerator from where he knelt in front of the dishwasher.

"Yeah, my wife loves to buy them," I replied. "I have to make her go through and get rid of a bunch every so often, or they’d go all the way down to the floor."

"They can be handy," he said. "Holding up pictures and stuff."

I agreed.

"If there ever came a time when you needed to lose weight, you could put a ‘before’ picture on the refrigerator to look at every time you open it."

Heh.

Words cannot express how badly I wanted to say I’ll show you a ‘before’ picture…

God help me, I feel like I’ve gone over to the dark side. I couldn’t help it. I searched high and low for a group of people around here who enjoyed doing the things I like, like hiking and biking and kayaking, and I only found one.

I’ve joined the local chapter of the Sierra Club.

On the lighter side, the Jesus sandals are comfortable after a few days, and you start to get used to not bathing or shaving.

(Note: hate mail can be sent here)

Sunday I strolled up to a place on Montesano called Flat Rock. This place is spoken of in awed voices by the Sierra Club people, so I expected it to be something else.

It was just a big flat rock.

Flat rock.
Impressive, no?

Power lines went right by flat rock, providing purty views…

…in both directions

I have a massive 15-page map of Montesano mountain, that shows all the trails traversing it. After much deliberation and Kerrying flip-flopping about it, I’ve decided to make it my goal to walk every single trail on the mountain before the winter is over. Sunday’s hike up to Flat Rock was the opening salvo.

Here’s what the map looks like (yes, I’m such a dork I screenshotted all 15 pages of a PDF and built the image myself), small version:

Please, check out the full-size version, it’s awesome.
Flat Rock is in the very upper right corner.

None of the trails will be particularly difficult, and I’ve already been on a goodly number of them, even though I’m not counting previous hikes in my new goal. The main trail to Flat Rock gives a bit of a problem, though, because it’s so long and solitary around the ridge of the mountain. I didn’t use the Flat Rock trail to get to Flat Rock on Sunday; I used trails that took me by the Stone Cuts and Sinks.

So, I’ve planned the hike from hell for this Saturday to get that trail out of the way, and I have to admit I’m a little nervous about it. This is my proposed path:

Again, check out the big version.
I’m starting and ending in the land trust parking lot,
near the upper left corner.

Most of the hikes I take are between 3 and 5 miles. As best I can estimate, I’ll be covering about 16 miles on this one, in one fell swoop that takes me from the top to the bottom to the top to the bottom to the top of the mountain, more or less.

For reference, each one of those little squares in the map is 1/10 of 1 mile on a side.

Anyone else out there do hikes like this? Do I need to be worried, or am I just a spaz? I know I’m in good shape, so I don’t think going that far at once is going to be a problem. I’ll be carrying food, water, a gun, maps, first aid, cell phone, GPS, and dressed in BDU pants to protect my legs from biting things (holy SHIT, I’m a dork), so I figure all I really have to worry about is falling off the mountain.

Which would suck.

Plus, it’ll be wet, probably, since Ivan the Terrible is headed through here on Thursday and Friday.

But that’ll just make it interesting, won’t it?