UPDATED: My pictures from the Republican National Convention with the Washington Post

Like most Clevelanders, I was more concerned with avoiding the Republican National Convention than taking part in the hoopla going on downtown. Those of us with offices downtown were really dreading the road closures and swarms of cops everywhere blocking the streets we're used to using. But when I got an invitation from the Washington Post to attend their events at the Butcher and Brewer downtown, I decided I would brave the traffic and check it out. (And I really do mean brave; there's nothing I hate more than sitting in traffic and sudden swarms of crowds around places I go every day. I stopped leaving the house on Black Friday, because it's hands-down the worst day of the entire season. My last Black Friday experience was being told to "get a grip" after jokingly threatening to jump out of the car rather than go anywhere near the mall traffic.)

I sat in on some health care and energy policy panels, and it was cool to hear Congressmen and governors discuss these issues in depth, instead of the talking points you hear on the news. I don't know who at the Washington Post added me to their list of Cleveland journalists, but I'm grateful to be on it.

But, of course, the really interesting part of the convention was the street theater. Enjoy!

Yes, it's exactly what it looks like: some aspiring sex offender stood in Public Square with a Hilary Clinton blow-up doll, annoying everyone by ringing a "liberty bell" every ten seconds in case you had overlooked him and his sole sex partner. (I think that grey dress is supposed to be a Lady Liberty costume, but honestly bro, that's a burqa.) Instead of joining the crowd scolding him for being a gross pervert and megawatt misogynist--which was the reaction he was hoping for--I decided to annoy him by putting my grubby hands all over his precious, precious blow-up doll. Basically, I said, "Oooh, that's hot. So do you use this with Hilary's face on it a lot at home?"

He did not deny. This is one guy I wouldn't want in the bathroom stall next to my daughter!

And speaking of that, this guy inspired mass outbreaks of Butthurt. Why? Because his sign points out something true, as well as amazingly funny. 

I can't confirm that the woman in the picture is one of those dour, humorless people who devotes a wildly disproportionate amount of time to the .1% of the population that is transgender and is therefore butthurt. I guess the argument is that sexual deviants will claim to be "transgender" in order to commit lewd sex acts, rape, and child molestation in the stalls.

You know vile degenerates who want to assault people and troll for sex in public restrooms can do that without dressing in drag, right? Much less pretending to be transgender. State troopers in Michigan can tell you about how self-described men with male genitals, who dress like men and use men's restrooms, have turned highway-stop restrooms into a sort of Hustler Club, except grosser. (But not much.) And yes, many are married or consider themselves straight. Just ask the Minneapolis airport police who entered a men's bathroom and were greeted with a generous offer to engage in some lewd sex acts with Republican Senator Larry Craig. 

On Wednesday, I sat in on a Black Lives Matter panel, despite feeling a little intimidated by the controversy around it. It was excellent and the most disappointing part was the poor attendance. As a suburbanite who attended in the interest of knowing what I'm talking about before spouting off about BLM, I can confirm that the media snippets and images you see are incredibly biased. Not necessarily because they're racist--and some definitely are--but because they're sensationalized to fill up round-the-clock cable news with exciting new drama and salacious details. Sorry, but no go. Here are some actual quotes from members of Cleveland's BLM chapter, which are pretty much drama-free and will therefore not appear on cable TV. 

--"95% percent of cops are good people." 

--"If you can't control your emotions, don't go to a Black Lives Matter rally." But yet all we see on cable TV are the riots. 

Black Lives Matter open discussion

--"The name 'Black Lives Matter' isn't suggesting that our lives matter more than other lives. Of course cops' lives matter. 'Black Lives Matter' means that ours matter just as much."

I agree. The president of Cleveland's Black Lives Matter chapter agrees. But that doesn't mean we should just ignore it whenever there's a rash of bad ones. I hate this argument. Saying "most (fill-in-the-blank: cops, Muslims, Catholic priests, members of fraternies or sports teams accused of rape) are great people" is often your first tip-off that this is a sinister and corrupt institution controlled by rancid personalities. Otherwise, the leadership would have zero trouble turning a child-abusing priest into the police, instead of moving him to another parish and intimidating fellow priests into silence. The roughly 91% of Muslims who hate ISIS would rise up and crush the 9% who are chill with rabid Muslims who have a fetish for videotaped beheadings. Teammates would turn in star college athletes who celebrate victories with a little rape. 

I hate to disappoint, but my most shocking revelation about BLM is...

Nothing. It was the most tame organization I encountered all week. The hands-down biggest troublemakers were the fire-and-brimstone people screaming into bullhorns about how black women should "shut their legs," along with other helpful advice. Yes, really.Yet the Black Lives Matter panel had the swarm of cops on high alert. I'm sure at least three cops for every attendee marched past the panel in formation, as if a group of fifteen people did something by sitting on couches and talking. It was interesting to see which groups attracted a bunch of cops to keep an eye on them, and which didn't.

And that's why I decided I'm going to wear my free Black Lives Matter T-shirts everywhere, especially out in the suburbs. I already have, by the way. In what amounts to maybe five hours total, I've had all kinds of interesting conversations with the guys at Subway, the pharmacist at CVS, and a black man and woman downtown who were thrilled I got the meaning of the name "Black Lives Matter." (No, it's not saying black people's lives matter more than everyone else's. It's that they matter just as much. Especially if they're male, poor, or have a history of drug addiction or homelessness, there's no doubt that the media coverage is often dehumanizing.) I also got some sour looks from librarians who questioned the validity of my library card, as if my T-shirt means I am a gang member from the rough streets of Avon Lake, here to steal some books from the local library. I also had some woman yell "so do blue lives!" at me downtown as she hustled past at 60 miles per hour, because she has memorized a stupid slogan and wants to get away quickly before someone tries to discuss the topic with her and realizes she knows absolute jack shit.

Anyway, I'm going to wear one again tomorrow. Why? To cause controversy and see what people say. What else did you think I would do? As Dionne from Clueless might say, "Ashley's thrill in life is controversy, okay. It gives her a sense of control in a world full of chaos."

Instigating controversy.

I'm pretty sure the Westboro Baptist Church was there. They were definitely hoping to ruin everything by inciting a physical confrontation with everyone else, especially real Christians who were outraged by these false prophets and the demonic messages spewing from their traps. I never believed in literal "demonic possession," seeing it as a metaphor for being consumed with evil thoughts. I've since changed my mind: how do we prove these people are not Satan's army? The guy with the bullhorn might even be the devil himself.

Lucifer's army, serving their Dark Lord Satan.

Yep, that's the devil alright. As a guy in the crowd yelled, "Don't listen to them, they are false prophets man!" And then he quoted a Bible passage from memory to prove it. Therefore, I left the area before they could corrupt my soul with their Satanic lies.

Just kidding. I don't think Satan gives two shits about the Westboro Baptist Church and its handful of members. They say they have 80; their public appearances suggest about 15 to 20 members of the Phelps clan. The Phelps clan has a long and noble history, dating to the Middle Ages, of honoring the solemn ceremony that modern scholars call "the White Trash Bash."

Just a heads-up: they're actually con artists. Do not go anywhere near them or give them any of your time. They will try to instigate a physical confrontation with you, then claim you assaulted them and try to slap you with a bullshit lawsuit. This is how they make a living: picking peoples' pockets via the court system. That sounds like a criminal ring of welfare cheats, not a church. Maybe this explains why Fred Phelps' daughter appears to be a slut with ten children by ten different babydaddys. (Okay, that was unfair. She might only have three or four babydaddys. That's not a bad ratio for babymamas living off court-ordered payments!)

Before I move on to another group of Fire and Brimstone People, here's a photo of sincere Christians.

Also, before it's time to point and laugh at the truth truck people, here's some personal photos from the week. I went to some "VIP" event at the Twitter headquarters, but since it was mostly a bunch of people eating snacks and Twittering in the middle of the afternoon, I found the atmosphere a bit pompous. This event was at a restaurant on 4th Street, one of those whimsical hipster fusion restaurants with the quirky atmosphere. In other words, the type of restaurants I hate, but are extremely popular with the Pompous People. This one has old movie cassette tapes of some of my personal childhood favorites and real classics, like "Casper," featuring megahottie Devon Sawa. After I started watching the movie on the bar TVs--which was "Patriot" by Mel Gibson--I got the sense that no one is actually supposed to watch the movies. They're just there as a whimsical and quirky touch to the creative atmosphere. At least I got a free T-shirt and helped myself to some rentals.

I decided to use my cell phone to take selfies instead of "tweeting," which often amounts to frantically sharing links to articles you didn't write yourself. Selfies tend to annoy the pompous people. Try it some time. A bunch of guys at the bar were watching me do it, as I explained that I was pretending to "Twitter." Whether they laughed or made sourpuss faces at the silly blonde who doesn't know you're supposed to spend the entire party "tweeting" seemed strongly correlated with how hot they were. Hot guys are apparently pro-selfie, anti-Twittering. Yes, I called it that on purpose because it has annoyed me since 2008 to hear the Pompous People correct your Twitter terminology in a very "duh" way. Everyone knows people Tweet on Twitter, read people's Tweets, or work on journalism assignments while Tweeting. Actually, I prefer the South Park guys' name for it: Shitter.

In fact, I long suspected that's where many of the Pompous People post their fascinating "tweets" from. Ew! No wonder they're so worried about who's in the nearby bathroom stalls. The next time you hear someone talk about posting obsessive "tweets" that are breaking news updates, ask if they usually post them live from the shitter. I hung out in the bathroom taking selfies, where my suspicions were confirmed.

I also met up with my friend Chrissy downtown, who's the newest member of my bestie network. I always know right off the bat who's about to become a good friend of mine: we decide within 24 hours or less that we should be besties. My best friend in high school and I were on the school newspaper together, but didn't interact much the first year. During our first one-on-one conversation, she asked, "Want to go walk around Wal-Mart tonight?" Answer: yes, I love Wal-Mart. I was also a fan of the six-CD player in her Echo (this was 2003, remember) and her excellent music collection, loaded with obscure hip-hop songs, 90s slow jams, and bands that ended up hitting it big a year or two later. She found them first because she has such impeccable taste. She and another newspaper staffer wrote a column about how much Incubus sucks, how their new album was the worst ever, and the lyrics were meaningless pseudo-intellectual bullshit by people who clearly smoke too much pot. They correctly stated that the meaning of the album title, A Crow Left of the Murder, meant nothing to anyone who didn't consult an encyclopedia first. "Murder" is a group of crows, and Incubus is to the left of the murder, and crows are symbolic for people, and...whatever, it's pompous. Incubus sucks!

They were, however, fans of Nickelback, who attract the haterade from the artsy intellectual set by having talent and writing good rock songs--the type you'd actually play at a party, not while you're inhaling weed from a vaporizer and contemplating the deep meaning of the lyrics. Seriously, readers, stop drinking the haterade over Nickelback. Why do people hate them? Because they're good at it. Also, they have a blue-collar appeal, not a pothead appeal, and write awesome lyrics that people can understand, inspiring jealousy among the Pompous People who think they are poets. She and the co-author were angrily confronted by the kids who prided themselves on being so smart! because they took AP classes, listened to shitty music, and tried to piss off their evangelical Christian classmates by talking about how abortion should be mandatory because of global warming. (Note: this is what we call Pot Thoughts.) The co-author became my other best friend. The newest additions to my club are Chrissy and a girl who told me she "insta-liked" me and wrote down article topics for me. New BFFs!

We met up at the Arcade. Considering the heat, do we look hot or what?

My aunt was also in town, volunteering at a hotel. We stopped by Edgewater Park to take pictures at this gorgeous spot I never knew existed.

Then the dangerous fanatics rolled into town to menace everyone with their more-hardcore-than thou "truth trucks," ie, a smattering of unrelated, yet semi-threatening images, plastered on a truck driving around the block in circles. It's not just the pictures--the tactic itself is menacing. If a "truth truck" driver who's decided he's issued enough warnings ends up detonating a massive truck bomb, Timothy McVeigh-style, I will not be shocked.

Instead of trying to wreck Christianity for the real Christians, why don't you guys try a more hardcore religion? Rabid Muslims sound more up your ally. I'm sure you can hop on Twitter and get in touch with Mustafa, who would like to recruit you to ISIS in order to destroy the Great Satan. Maybe you can even burn some Bibles together! The rabid "Christians" don't seem to have much use for it these days, other than the one sentence in the Old Testament that calls "lying with another man" an "abomination." Let's look at that.

Yes, Leviticus does call "lying" with a man an "abomination." But Leviticus 18 is full of rules about sexual morality, and they're not in the "abominable" category. Leviticus uses a different word for sex acts that are immoral, like bestiality (it's perverse) having sex with a woman and her daughter (it's wicked) or your wife's sisters (that's wicked too). If you have sex with your brother's wife, you're "defiled," which I believe roughly translates into "scumbag piece of shit."

Incest is forbidden for a different reason, apparently. The Bible calls it "uncovering the nakedness" of your aunt, uncle, brother, sister, et cetera. What does that mean?

Remember, the Bible doesn't always say what you think it does. I'm pretty sure God opposes incest for reasons bigger than the fact that you'll see your sister naked. Personally, I believe "uncovering the nakedness" means "uncovering" the fact that you carry genetic diseases that are supposed to be recessive.

Incest is not described as wicked or perverse, probably because it was the norm back then to marry your first cousins. Remember, this was written thousands of years ago for a bunch of tribal people living in small groups. They didn't know the danger of becoming, shall we say, a bunch of "kissing cousins" carrying the same genetic diseases, like Tay-Sachs syndrome in Jewish people. (Although no one looked askance Cleopatra for marrying her own brother.) Also, I'm pretty sure people were still so patriarchal that they were only considered siblings if they shared the same father. The Bible clears up this nastiness and confirms that mothers count just as much. In fact, it might be the first historical text to define "brother from another mother." It offers the helpful advice to not sleep with them, clarifying for us all. Thanks, Bible!

And, of course, we have the passage about two men "lying down" together--whatever that means. It's abominable, rather than wicked or perverse. What other behaviors fall under the "abominable" umbrella? Eating shrimp and oysters, along with various insects, reptiles, and vermin. This is good advice--who would want to eat spiders or snakes? That's disgusting. Also, you could die. Reptiles known to carry salmonella, like turtles and frogs, are "abominable things." But God is, apparently, cool with grasshoppers--the Bible says you can eat them. (Side note: you can. I hopped on Google and checked.) If the word "abominable" in the Bible means "wicked and sinful," does that mean box turtles are evil? If so, God should be raining fire and brimstone down upon Petco stores any day now.

Thank God--literally--that most of us realize how insane that sounds. This is clearly a health code. I'm no expert, but I am a Bible reader. In context, "abomination" is clearly an awkward translation for a word meaning "disease-spreading." It's no big secret that having anal sex puts people at risk for deadly STDs, including HIV. (Don't quibble with me on this. You're wrong and will inspire a whole new blog post about how it's nearly impossible to get HIV from heterosexual intercourse.) According to the CDC, "gay and bisexual men accounted for 63% of estimated new HIV infections in the United States and 78% of infections among all newly infected men. From 2008 to 2010, new HIV infections increased 22% among young (aged 13-24) gay and bisexual men and 12% among gay and bisexual men overall."

Therefore, the Bible prohibits anal sex for the same reason it forbids eating spiders and snakes: you could get sick and die. Sounds like God does not like human suffering and has advice on how to prevent it.

Don't worry, I know the fire-and-brimstone people won't budge an inch on this. They should introduce Leviticus to Mustafa and their new besties in ISIS. Instead of "Death to Israel," they'll be chanting "Death to the snapping turtles! Death to bullfrogs and garter snakes!"

And speaking of that...

My position: nah, we don't need to. As Ann Coulter says, "if you don't want to be killed by ISIS, don't fly to Syria." ISIS is the only "army" in the world that has to recruit people on Twitter to fly over to their piece of shit country. I say ISIS can keep their "state," which seems to be composed of filthy tent villages sitting on some sand. Who would want to live there?  I saw it in their Youtube videos; it looks shitty.

I recently discovered via a DNA test that I'm part of the HV haplogroup, a maternal line whose members all descend from the same woman who lived in modern-day Iraq or a neighboring country. This is in line with another DNA test I took in 2006, which showed one group of my ancestors originating in the Middle East, hanging out in Turkey for a while, and then turning up near the Southern coast of Spain and France. My best guess is that they arrived with the Muslim invasion of Europe. These being my ancestors, they then looked around and said, "Wait, what are we fighting for again? Our country sucks!" and decided to stay. This was around the time when Islamic nations went from being educated societies that valued art and science to being a bunch of headcutters in headscarves living in some nice tents. There's a saying about the phenomenon of white flight in the 1950s: "once it goes black, you never go back." My ancestors took the the same approach, except by "going black," they meant this.

Did I mention the current inhabitants of countries like Syria aren't native to that land? My ancestors were the natives. The internet says the Headcutters in Headscarves are "more recent migrants." Can I show up there and act like they owe me something? I think the HV haplogroup should unite and take it over. Just kidding, we don't want it back. But if we did, the Europeans among us would be accused of "racism," "imperialism," and my personal favorite, "Islamophobia." 

I went up and talked to this woman just to see if she was implying that it's "racist" to ban Muslim immigrants. It took only a few questions to get my answer. Yep, she's one of those people who thinks Islam is a race and Muslims are an aggrieved ethnic group hated for their skin color. 

Which race? Which ethnic group? Which skin color? Adolf Hitler babbled incoherently about the Aryan Nation, mostly because he was high and didn't know what the hell he was talking about. The real Aryans named their country after themselves: Iran. (That makes sense, actually. Look how much they have in common! Hitler must have found inspiration in Iranian newspapers, who have run articles claiming Jews descend from apes and pigs. We should start referring to their latest dirty-faced ayatollah--whoever that asshole is--as "Hitler in a Headscarf.") White Europeans are sometimes described as "caucasian." But the Muslims who inhabit the North Caucasus region are literally Caucasians. They also gave us the two ne'er-do-well Muslim brothers who dropped out of school because they smoked too much pot. But instead of putting down the marijuana pipes and getting a job, they blamed their personal failings on the infidels.

Explain to me how this is not a white guy.

He looks mighty white to me. I don't think the problem is his race--which is, again, Caucasian--but the fact that he bombed the Boston Marathon because it makes Allah smile. Charmingly enough, these two Muslim immigrants are now the main suspect in the murder of three Jewish men who had their throats slit. Which other immigrants are we expected to let in because it would be "racist" to discriminate against Muslims? How about the ones who unload AK-47s in gay nightclubs because they think slaughtering the homos will delight Allah?

Speaking of that, Muslims are trying to steal from the gay rights movement, too. "Islamophobia" is a blatant rip-off of the word "homophobia." It implies they're similar--which is big talk coming from people whose governments hang people for being gay. (Some cut to the chase and throw them off buildings.) It also implies that fire-and-brimstone Muslims were born that way. Nah, I think there's some human choice involved when you bomb a marathon or fly to Syria to join ISIS. These are the immigrants we need to ban. Muslims call that "racist" in order to shut down any valid condemnation of the real problem: their religion. That's it. They don't think anyone should be allowed to speak ill of their religion, as well as the beastly cultural practices they justify with their religion. 

Is Trump racist? I'd say no, at least not in his personal life. I can't picture a highly educated Manhattan billionaire, whose very name invokes glamour and sophistication, fitting in at the white trash bash that is a KKK rally. I have no doubt that many of his supporters are. But in response to her question "Is Trump a racist?" I have some questions of my own.

"Do you acknowledge that the Nazi Holocaust happened?"

"Do you agree that Muslims have no right to special treatment that other religious people don't get? Do you agree these accommodations, such as the prayer rooms installed in Minnesota public schools to cater to Somalis, violate the separation of church and state?"

"I see you're a Muslim woman from the 'Horn of Africa,' countries like Sudan and Somalia. These countries are controlled by Muslim warlords prone to mass murder, as well as genocide in places like the Darfur region of Sudan. Do you agree that America should be less, not more, like Sudan? Sudan sounds like a pile of shit."

"On that note, do you agree to abandon the wicked cultural practices of your homeland? Many Muslim governments in Africa condone slavery, rape, genocide, and...drumroll, please....holding little girls down so they can saw labia and clitoris off with rusty knives. I just have to ask, have you had that done? Nearly all women in these Muslim countries do. Would you do it to your own daughter? If the answer is yes, go home, no one wants you here. If the answer is no, would you support immediately deporting parents who get caught doing it to their daughter--but only after the daughter has been taken away by Child Protective Services?"

I suspect she would not be happy to provide truthful answers. No wonder this guy is tired of being mistaken for a Muslim. 

Not everyone in a turban or a headscarf is Muslim. This guy is a Sikh from India, who are often mistaken for Muslims by culturally ignorant people who don't know much about the world and don't bother talking to them first. A few Sikhs were even shot after 9/11 by vigilantes. He really is a victim of cultural ignorance. He is also my new superhero. 

No, it's never okay to hate someone for their skin color. But it's always okay to judge a religion, its teachings, the cultural practices it inspires, and the behavior that followers engage in and/or condone. In fact, people in free societies should judge the shit out of religious fanatics, since people who want to impose their religious practices on the public are a threat to everything good about our society.

It takes a lot of intellectual gymnastics to argue that Islam is a race and illegal immigrant is an ethnic group. There's apparently a new race called "brown." Members of this brand-new race includes border-jumpers with with bronzy skin tones--who speak a European language, follow a European style of government, practice a religion imported by European conquerors, and bear the names of European invaders from a power-mad empire--crossing the border illegally in the backs of trucks, instead of just asking the U.S. government for permission. When I was growing up, we called Latin Americans "Spanish people." The teacher who taught us their European language corrected us: they're people from Spanish-speaking countries. It's not a race, and it's not a culture either--Mexicans are culturally different from Puerto Ricans, who are different from Cubans and Dominicans. Now they're "Hispanics," "Latinos" and "Chicanos," and white liberals harp on the fact that most Mexicans have Native American blood mixed with Spanish. They're a minority! Let's disregard the fact that "Latinos" only exist because their ancestors were bloodthirsty conquerors sent by the Spanish empire to take over the entire continent. The poor, oppressed Brown race also includes Muslims arriving in boats, an alarming number of them packed with able-bodied young men.

It seems all we care about these days is being not-racist, not-sexist, not-homophobic, and tolerant and open-minded...but only to certain people, mainly the ones making up brand-new races so no one can criticize their behaviors, beliefs, and attitudes. Instead of asking, "is it racist to judge them?" ask yourself, "is this a culture where strong and healthy men would fill up lifeboats with the weak and vulnerable first: the elderly, children, disabled people, pregnant women, et cetera? Or would they trample over those people to save themselves?"

And this brings me to my personal area of expertise: the Titanic! If you're new to this blog, you'll be hearing about it a lot because it is the ultimate analogy for ethical questions. Basically, it's a "lifeboat ethics" scenario involving actual lifeboats. It's also been a personal hobby of mine since I was ten. Why? Maybe it's in my blood. I recently learned, via my DNA test and reading through volumes of genealogy books written by my Irish great-uncle, that I had as many as 20 blood relatives on the ship. It would take a Talmudic scholar to unravel a typical Irish immigrant's extended family, but the 20 relatives include two half-siblings of my great-grandmother, along with several of their cousins and in-laws from two sparsely populated Irish counties. Some relationships are harder to figure out. I'm still working on it, but it seems to involve some babydaddys, as well as a brother from another mother. In any event, these people's great-grandchildren showed up as my third, fourth, and fifth cousins on my 23andMe DNA test. My great-grandmother, Nellie, had an aunt named Jane who lived in Connecticut and worked as a maid; this woman disappeared sometime after 1901 and was never heard from again. My family's intensive genealogy research began when they set out looking for her around 1955. This was the same year the first Titanic movie, A Night To Remember, came out, which I doubt was coincidental. Anyway, I'm positive this is her. There's always been a family legend about a long-lost great-grandmother coming from Ireland with fourteen kids, although I've also heard she had twenty or even twenty-one children. I now think the "kids" were a group of young Irish immigrants chaperoned by this Aunt Jane.

Anyway, there were people from dozens of countries aboard, including 709 immigrants in third class. Their survival rates, along with witness accounts, tell us what we should already know: some cultures really are better than others. The British appear to be rancid people who value titles above human life. A British couple with the title of "Lord" hogged Lifeboat No. 1 for themselves, their maids, and their yippie dogs. Meanwhile, entire families of British people in third class died. The French were divided along strict class lines, too: French men in first class saved themselves, while all of the French men in second class abided by the "women and children only" rule. Scandinavian men had terrible survival rates. The Norwegian and Swedish men who did live only got into lifeboats if they were traveling with their wives and children. None of the men from various Latin American cultures saved themselves, although they did save their wives before going down with the ship. (Score one for the Latinos! I like their culture. However, I still have qualms about them sneaking across the border in the back of a truck.) The Eastern European people aboard, including Hungarians, Croatians, Slovenians, and Greeks, were mostly single men, and every single one of these men died. Men from misogynist cultures had no trouble ignoring the "women and children first" rule while trampling over women and old ladies. The only man in second class who saved himself was from Japan, land of the geishas and "comfort women" held as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers.

I'll be an ethnic chauvinist here and say that the best culture on the ship was mine. All but five of Ireland's survivors were female. For the Irish, it wasn't just "women and children first," it was "women and girls first," all of their male children died while the girls lived. Of the five adult men who survived, three lived after toughing it out in the water and climbing aboard overturned collapsible lifeboat B. Only two were in lifeboats. The first offered to hold the hand of a girl who was too scared to jump fifteen feet into a descending lifeboat, telling her "if you jump, I'll jump"--and inspiring the famous movie line. The other one was some incredibly goofy-looking guy named Daniel Buckley who offered to man the oars. In a night with few heroics, Irish men came out the winners of the international Manly Man contest. Although they were stereotyped as silly drunks who like to beat people up, they went out of their way to get third class women and children to lifeboats--all of them, not just the ones who shared their religion and nationality. It was Irish passenger Jim Farrell who demanded that the crew open the third-class gates. When a melee broke out around the last lifeboat and crewmen fired guns at men trying to get in, some immigrant women ran away in terror; the Irish men grabbed them and dragged them back. Sure, they could have used brute force to shove their way into this boat, but such wicked and unmanly thoughts never occurred to them. One Irish survivor recalled that the last time she saw Jim Farrell, he was kneeling and praying the rosary after hoisting some women in headscarves into the last lifeboat. 

But speaking of headscarves, there was one group of men who did pretty well for themselves! They had far and away the highest survival rate of any nationality in third class. Even 33% of the single men lived, and not by clinging onto crude flotation devices all night. 

No, these appalling pussies saved themselves by trampling over women and children waiting to board the last two boats. When the U.S. government held hearings to find out what happened, surviving crewmen singled out one group of steerage men as the worst people on board. While Irishman Jim Farrell uttered the famous words "Good God, man, let the girls past to the boats!" these men attempted to flee with their male children and luggage. They saw it as a great opportunity to dispose of unwanted wives and teenage daughters. (They did, however, make a few exceptions for underage sex slaves.) Crewmen had to drag wives away from these men, who would not allow them to leave. Some crewmen gave in and allowed them to enter lifeboats with their wives and hoard of kids, on the grounds that it was better than a bunch of children being forced to die with the male patriarch. For Irish men, it was "if you jump, I'll jump." For these men, it was "if I die, you die." 

No one knew who these people were, but described them as vaguely "Latin-looking" people with brown hair, brown eyes, and shabby clothes. But all hell broke loose when Fifth Officer Harold Lowe described them as "Italian" and admitted to using them for target practice. Throughout the hearings, the aristocrats bitched about Lowe, treating him like a member of the dirty working class who didn't do enough to save the important people. In reality, he was the biggest hero of the night. While other officers made exceptions for rich men, Lowe filled his lifeboats to capacity with women and children only, many of them third class. He wanted to stay aboard, but a higher-ranking officer told him to get in Lifeboat No. 14. As the boat lowered, a group of men tried to kick, shove, and push women aside so they could jump in, even trying to toss out a woman they had deemed too fat to deserve a seat. When they nearly tipped Lifeboat 14 into the ocean--on purpose, according to some witnesses--Lowe popped off a few shots.

The Pompous People demanded to know why he did this, accusing him of ethnic cleansing for refusing to let a bunch of men stampede the boat. "What country were they from?" Lowe guessed Italy. Why? Because they looked Italian, or vaguely "Latin." (Like the brown people today, in 1912 Latin was a race.) "Why would you shoot at Italians and not others?" Because they were the only ones threatening the lives of women and children, that's why. "Are you an anti-Italian bigot?" To which Lowe responded: fuck you. He was the only officer who bothered to return after the ship sank, rowing over a mile to look for survivors in a mile-wide field of dead bodies and wreckage. He acted as quickly as possible, ignoring pleas from other crew to not risk it. Lowe rescued five people. Instead of praising him for this incredible act of heroism, the Pompous People berated him for his insensitive language--he apparently called an Asian man floating on a door a "Jap" before saving his life. Perhaps Lowe should have taken a three-hour sensitivity-training course before returning to the wreck so as not to offend minorities. Of course, those minorities would have been dead by the time he arrived.

Sorry, just had to post a video because the actor who played Harold Lowe is another megahottie. The real Harold Lowe was pretty hot as well.

Lowe was forced to apologize to the Italian ambassador before the hearings could continue. But Italians were not, in fact, the World's Worst Ethnic Group. There were only two on board, a married couple in second class. And they weren't Latin, either--whatever Latin means. Any guesses? The worst people aboard were...drumroll, please...

Let's not forget that these Arab "victims" had appalling survival statistics. A bunch of adult men, married and single, got into the last lifeboats when hundreds of women and children were still aboard. Women only survived if their husbands let them; single women had a lower survival rate than married men. What kind of culture produces men who would gladly throw old ladies, pregnant women, and children--at least the girls--overboard so they can rescue themselves? That's disgusting. The 1997 movie was meticulously accurate, nailing every little detail--except one. Whenever an Arab was involved in a scene that actually happened, he changed their ethnicity. You probably remember this little girl from the movie, who was apparently abandoned by her family as the last lifeboat was launched. This girl is wearing a headscarf, which is accurate, considering the real passenger she depicts was Lebanese. But James Cameron made sure she had red hair and freckles, which is some bullshit. 

I'm sure James Cameron wanted to imply that this girl's wicked parents were Irish, which is a reversal of the truth. In reality, it was Irish men who tore Syrian and Lebanese women away from their male owners and tossed them into the boat. Some of these women climbed out because they considered themselves as good as dead without husbands; others said "Smell ya later, camel jockey!" and used their headscarves to shield their faces so their husbands wouldn't know they were in the lifeboat. Thanks, Irish men!

Anyway, what's to like about Arab culture here? How could anyone not gape in horror at these disgusting people. They have a social system where the powerful trample over the rights of the weak and needy. I'm judging their culture and their religion. What's to like about it? This culture is not one that values human life unless they can sacrifice those lives in wars and terrorist attacks to please Allah.

Therefore, I'll close this blog post with this guy. Agree or disagree, at least his message is consistent: all people matter and every life has value.