Outdoor Sports: Employment Discrimination

Remember this: You are being researched by employers. The employer’s personal opinion on activities and thoughts applicants have in life, could possibly bias the employer choosing a person who enjoys the outdoor sports for employ.

Today I attended a workshop that was geared toward resume building and application. This was to update my knowledge on the new format that is now being pushed to find employment.

During the section on resume editing, I asked the facilitator a question. My question was: Can one of your previous jobs be offensive to a future employer?

She stared at me and said, “I don’t know. What have you been into?”

I looked at her with a cat-eating grin and gave a drawn out, “Well…” We both chuckled.

The particular job I would like to use as an example is the time I worked in a wild game processing business that only processed deer meat.

In this particular job, hunters would drop off deer and it would be field dressed on-site and then processed into sausage, hamburger, cube steak, etc.

Here was employment that could be frowned down on by those who do not agree with the taking of wild game for food or sport. I was reading some of the questions about people who support the activities of hunting being as guilty as those doing the hunting. I thought it was because of enabling. That complete series is for another written piece.

What if one of these people worked in human resources at a job you wanted to apply for, but used a previous job as a reason not to hire you because it was based around harm to animals?

Is this fair? Could it happen? Has it happened? Is it discrimination?

Another example is this blog that I write. I am looking at different points of interests but it is based around outdoor sports, which now, thanks to hunters that are bad examples, this can now be frowned upon on by a future employer who doesn’t personally or professionally believe in hunting or fishing. My points of view have probably raised an eyebrow or two.

I had a long conversation with the facilitator about this. Should I leave this one job off my resume and application? Of course, this was a job I occupied while working two other jobs at the same time.

How much of our previous experiences should we edit in order to get a job? Should these jobs considered unsightly, be condemned because activities such as hunting have now gone under scrutiny by non-hunters, animal activists, and scientists? Scientists have now gotten on the bandwagon with the super predator narrative since the Cecil debacle. I didn’t think that was a new concept. That information is holding hands with climate change, habitat fragmentation, and on-coming extinction of species. Corporations dug holes in the earth, fracked it to pieces, and polluted up the waters.

I was told to remove it from my resume and application because it wasn’t relevant. The facilitator told me that in jobs for which I was applying that these employers should be well informed on the condition of hunting and outdoor sports. The employer should understand a working function of those aspects of life that are facilitated by person endeavor through the understanding of biological processes. What if the scientific mind is overruled by the emotional, judgmental mind?

Randomness and the ability to deviate from expected outcomes and thought can blow the little boat of potential employ out of the water.

It would be different if I were applying for a job in the hunting industry, field sports, or a place like Bass Pro Shops. This would be a relevant place to list such an employment history.

Knowing the depth and ease in which employers can hack your account by building business pages, to which you solicited a friends requests toward the business on social sites such as Facebook, can look deep into your private affairs and posts, to judge you as a potential employee or not.

What is considered to invasive when employers want to hack your life with every known technology at their hands to discover the real you?

I say this, but when someone commits a crime or is accused of one, social media sites are right there, ready to give over your personal information to help build an unsubstantiated and circumstantial case. This evidence can be misconstrued as something it is not. Your reputation is destroyed, innocent or not.

Could some examples be illustrated to test this possiblity?

An example would be if you friend requested the local employment center. The employment center accepts your request then can see everything you have posted on private and public accounts. If you have booty shots or naked women on videos, this is your preference. Your lifestyle and activity choices could land you in the hot seat.

Another example is a trophy hunter posting his photography of hunted species on the internet. This hunter goes to look for a job but is denied. What if that hunter was turned down because of his personal activities instead of his stellar work history, experiences, passion, and cover letter?

Should you live your life living with the anxiety that you will be penalized because you decided to hunt and fish to feed yourself, show your pride and happiness at doing so, or write about issues plaguing the outdoor sports?

Is it worth the risk if there is no pay-off?

I eventually watched as she hatched away at over twenty years of jobs and experiences to one page. I felt good about the progress.

It still lingered on my mind; all those things that an employer can hold against you in the hiring process, without knowing or meeting the person you are, just the one you were trained to pretend to be because employers have been taught to go for a certain molded employee. The problem with this is: Once the employee is out of the mold, the individual hired may or may not work out. The job will test the person, the worker will emerge, and progress will be made.

Think about the present state of the outdoor sports when it comes to hunting and fishing. Think about the negative connotations set against hunters at this time due to bad examples and bad publicity. The next time you apply for a job or share your life with an employer, if not in the hunting industry, could that be held against you?

Written by: Angelia Y Larrimore

Three Coffins Deep

Remember this: Animals are elevated on the wall. Humans can be buried up to three coffins deep.

 

My thoughts have been on the different ways hunters perceive trophy animals and their treatment. Trophy animals are elevated to a status of enshrinement in a hunter’s home. What could this mean?

A hunter will stalk the landscape to find a young or old specimen and kill it. I say kill, because it is what it is.  You are not saving its life. You are taking it. This landscape is a location with legal parameters that dictates how the animal will be disposed after hunted.

American states don’t allow transport of animal parts from other states due to disease. Countries don’t allow transport of meat, but will allow pelts or other taxidermied parts to be transported to the hunter. This varies from place to place, depending on legalities.

Let us consider the treatment of trophy animals.

There are views that trophy animals are patriarchal or matriarchal animals that live to old age.  The quarry has reached a pre-death stage where a hunter quests to enact euthanasia.  The argument here is: it saves the animal from dying a natural death to its end, no matter how unattractive.  The hunter processes the animal in some pre-determined way. After finalizing the hunt, the animal is taxidermied then showcased in a home, museum, etc.

I thought about a quote I read on a public social media wall. I am not knocking the person it made birth from.  I challenged the content as true or false. I could have copy and pasted the quote, but it seemed irrelevant. Why? I wasn’t arguing the definition of a trophy hunter or the goals they pursue. To sum up the quote: trophy hunter perfectionist acts as euthanasia man to prevent animal from dying under a bush; places on wall.

Is this what a perfectionist would strive to do in reality? How is this considered perfection when it is a severely flawed delusion of the true reality? I also asked the question was the intention of seeking perfection in this trophy acquisition really ending a perfectly lived life to old age in a less than natural way? By natural, I mean without human mechanical means.

I felt if a true perfectionist considered this scenario, it would be beneath them. It would never be perfect enough. Perfectionists tend to start, stop, and repeat without carrying through a percentage of the time because all conditions are not perfect.

I do reread my own writing and question the content because it is easy to fall into the trap of readable appearances. What read as a common sense quote or statement could turn into a questionable contradiction.   

Here is where my thoughts began. It is the way in which we treat perceived special animals and human counterparts. There are several types to consider; humans, trophy, non-trophy, nuisance, laboratory, and domesticated animals or pets.

The trophy represents some experience in the hunter’s life that must be remembered. The animal is held in esteem by prolonging its existence in the form of a taxidermied shell.  What is left after processing is showcased in the home, office, museum, etc.

How loved the processed trophy is treated depends on the hunter’s attachment to the memory. Some hunters love their trophies others move on to the next. Taxidermied trophies tend to be eventually overlooked throughout the day as unconscious home décor. It is always there and passed by so many times in a day. If there is no one to tell the tale to, it gets overlooked often. Dust bunnies start to build up, moisture breeds mold, the fleshy shell begins to crack in weak places, and the animal face no longer holds its fresh appearance. What once was a majestic beast in need of enshrinement now becomes an unsightly eyesore. I will not even go into the aftermath of divorces. There is no telling where the trophy will end up.

What about the other types? Attachment sways the dictation of treatment. How attached is the person to the animal or person? Does this attachment generate from competition and value over the animal? Is it coveted that much as a trophy animal?

I wanted to touch briefly on each type as they were valued and disposed.

For domesticated animals, the intended could be tossed in a dumpster, a place in the woods, or left to lay and decompose. Special pets could be buried in a grave, cremated, or be taxidermied. These beloved pets are elevated above animals people have no attachment to. If it is a cow beyond veterinary help, then a trip to the slaughter house may be prescribed if the meat hasn’t been tainted by medicines and chemicals.

For wild, non-trophy animals, the fate of being gut shot and left to wonder off and die could happen. This could happen with farmers and their crops, nuisance animals where the shooter doesn’t want to deal with the body or cruelty cases where no emotional attachment is exhibited. Hit-by-car wildlife could lie there several days before the road crew cleans the body up. Wildlife can be viewed without interference while onlookers watch animals kill, eat each other, and video tape events.

Laboratory animals are left in containment over a period of time, yet receiving adequate care without emotional attachment. Treatment depends on the experiment they are entered into.

When you consider people, you never see taxidermied humans. I think there are laws against this. There are bodies that have been plasticized for art and donated for scientific study. There are also those deceased peoples, who have supposedly put their bodies in deep-freeze to be re-animated to cure their diseases or live again. For people considered important by society, they are elevated in pop or historical culture.

With human beings, we tend to entomb in a mausoleum, be cremated, or buried up to three coffins deep. Given these three options, the body is initially on display before burial, if possible. Once the funeral is over and the coffin is buried, the only thing left are pictures and a headstone.  Where a beloved trophy is hanging on the wall, Grandma Moses is out of sight, ten miles away and well under the ground. Most people do not even go to the cemetery, once the body is buried to refresh the flowers. To be fair, this is not true of all people. There are families that tend their dead vigilantly, depending on the culture and country. They elevate their ancestors above the animals they hunt. Others see the animals as their ancestors in another form. Other cultures see dead human bodies as empty shells that can be possessed by the damned.

With hunting quarry, there are views that the animal shouldn’t be left to die an unsightly death at the pickings of vultures. Yet for humans and unloved animals ,we bury them well out of sight or discard them with little care to the treatment of the remains. Animal and human alike are shoved in a trashbag without prejudice. 

When you look at the relationship between the trophy hunter and the trophy, the pivot seems to be the level of attachment the hunter projects onto the animal, circumstances and memory. Culture could play a part where applied. There exists in equal parts the action of the hunter to the hunted.  After learning about cultures and their treatment of the dead and animals, it is not difficult to believe the why or because of trophy hunting. It is still incredible to me, the way in which humanity categorizes creatures of value versus creatures perceived to be less or no value.

 

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

The Jungle Cat

Remember this: The jungle cat is on the prowl.

In the beginning, there was grass. In the grass crawled a predator with keen senses like a black panther. Stalking its prey near a flowing sea of green, the beast slowly made its way across the grasslands. Thunder echoed from miles away. Danger was at every turn. The horses stared at the simpleton in the grass, wondering why their owner was scurrying so low to the ground and pretending to be a mouse. With every twitch of the doe's ear, the predator knew that it could be discovered. It lowered itself along the dirt like the black snake then moved as silent as the grave to the strike zone. The beast realized the grass was giving her the mad itch. She let out a low growl. Maybe a painful groan, before proceeding. Stretching her body out and moving with silent agility, the black panther finally reached a point to spy the prey. The deer were standing to attention. The tattletale horses had given the beast away. The horses ran away laughing, while the deer stood by the trees pointing at the idiot in the grass. The beast was bested this day and shook her fist, "I shall get you."

I wanted to get some photographs of the deer herds before local hunters mobilized , guns ablazing, for the upcoming deer hunting season. I went about my rounds but the day was humid. I could hear thunder and periwinkle clouds were above the trees. I didn't realize till much later that I had left the only battery to my camera in the house. I went to feed the dog when I stared off near the trees. Out in the field were a small  herd of deer. I didn't have time to go and get the battery. I decided to be a sneak thief and take these photos with my cell phone. If the quality is not that good let us chalk it down to Barney's shakey trigger finger.

I thought I would be slick and just walk out there to them. The wind was blowing away from me. I strolled straight out to the field and hid along side a paint mare. I had her walk towards the deer. The deer seem too enthralled in eating the soybeans. I moved closer. I realized I would not be able to hide behind this horse much longer. I got to the edge of the pasture then dropped down on my stomach.  I wanted to get as close to them, without spooking them, as possible. I crawled on my stomach for what I thought was three or five long minutes.  It could have been eternity. It felt like it. I would stop and look over the soybeans to see if they were still there. I was sweating bullets because it was getting more humid by the minute. The wind began to blow up my back toward the deer. I figured this would compromise me and drift my smell over to them. I laughed about this, snorted and thought, "I smell like roses." I crawled on.  Old horse poop land mines lay at every turn. I chalked this one down to my doctor prescribing exercise and this helped me to the pain medicine hours later. Crawling should be in your exercise regime for hunting. You never know when you have to stop, drop, crawl, or roll. Unfortunately, I can't ever run again. I would have to just sit there and be eaten by a bear; maybe dash salt and pepper on myself for good measure.

I stood up and took some photos, which I was closer than these appear. I chuckled all the way back to the house. I am definitely paying for it now. I thought I would share my shenanigans and give you a laugh because I am tons of fun. I think there might be some leprechauns hiding out in all that green. No one shall find my gold.

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

A Very Curious Fawn.

Remember this: You never know what you'll see. Get outside.


It was extremely hot this afternoon. I wanted to take my father's dog for her evening  ride out to the watermelon patch. We sit out in the middle of a horse pasture eating watermelon. The watermelon row is short but the drought, then flood of water, has cause the melons to stunt. Some rot in the field before they even turn ripe inside. It's a hazard, along with the out-of-control grass. I am just glad I have snake boots. I decided to see what the state of affairs were in regards to flooded areas that needed to be bushhogged. Everything is a hot mess. High grass is everywhere. I shook my head. My son would have to wait to cut the grass.

While out riding around, I came across this pair of fawns standing in the soybean field. This little fellow posed up a storm instead of running off in the treeline. First it stared, then whipped its tongue out several times tasting the air. The fawn started to come over to me, but I didn't want it to. The fawn decided it would be best to walk off into the bushes. I was glad. These were well fed fawns as you can see. Usually, when I am messing about in the woods with my plants, little deer will become curious and come just close enough to you. I take a look then ignore them. If you act like you don't see them, the less scared they are. By the time hunting season comes, shooting puts the fear of God in them fast enough; sadly to say. The only thing trying my patience is the fact my camera is malfunctioning. On the distance setting, the image doesn't stablize and looks somewhat blurry. It also jumps back and forth between options on the option button; drives me batty. If it breaks, I will not be able to get a better one. It has been a good camera.

One other time, I became ecstatic seeing a huge turkey poult.  I got a photo of one of the little turkey birds. I warned the neighbors to watch their dogs, become one of them has a mean little dachsund and a red nose pit with no training whatsoever. Domestic pets menace them just as much as wild animals.

When I see these little babies I am so happy. They give you hours of fun when you watch them because they play alot. Even though they are eating machines, I still like them.

A week ago, a white plane was pretending to be the Red Baron over the woods behind the house, which annoyed me. The pilot seemed to be running the deer. Whether this was on purpose is unknown to me. I didn't know who it was, but the plane spooked the deer so badly they would not come out the woods for a week. I almost thought the plane was going to crash in the duck pond. You just never know with people anymore. Maybe they were looking for hidden marijuana fields. I am sorry to report  I have none, unless you want some oleanders bushes.

I did want to share this picture because it is just darling.

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

The Shifting Shadows

Remember this: The midday sun casts a shadow on the ground but the setting sun only makes a solid form appear like an empty shadow when really it is solid as a rock.

Recently I modified a wooden dilapidated chicken brooder into a coop with heat lamps to keep the chickens I have hand raised since April-May of last year warm. The golden buffs were complaining like two old ladies and seeing them with frost huddled up on a wire laying pen made me feel sorry for their plight. I was their care-taker so I felt compelled to build a better mouse trap for them. I must say my carpentry skills are becoming occult I tell you.

I resembled a chicken thief sneaking up on the fowl in the dark to gently grab their legs and shove them “into the light”. They showed their appreciation by dropping a couple of eggs off the next morning. Seeing my business was done I walked around to feed my horses. As I was tossing sweet feed I looked out over the back field to see if I could detect movement. Near the swamp I thought I saw a dark shape move. I walked out of the corral to get a better look. Here I was doing the three-step until I was out in the barren garden behind some very thin wispy dried weeds. I stood and stared for a while. Lo and behold seven dark shapes strolled out along the barbed wire fence. I wondered if I could get any closer. I shuffled on stopping randomly and standing still. One of the horses came out and I thought she was going to blow my cover but I moved up the row. Eventually the other three horses came out and I was walking down the dirt row in the center of them. I thought two can play at that game Mr. Deer herd. I began to think about the things these tricky deer have done in the past.

I remembered over the summer I was picking string beans when I decided to lie down in the tall grass to take a rest. The light was right and I wanted to watch bugs. After a while of bug watching and wondering if a snake would slither through I got up and went about my business planning to come back to pick more beans. The next day I discover the deer have wallowed in the same area I laid down in. I scratched my head and said, “Huh.” Undoubtedly the deer tried to get my stink on them in a pivotal move of strategy to hide their scent when men with guns came a-calling. Well played; well played. How smart is that?

I realized that while looking at these deer they were nothing more than black silhouettes dancing across the late evening to disappear at their leisure into the beige high grass by a now defunct watering hole.

This shadowing effect got me to thinking about how in hunting we are obstructed, confused, or enlightened by shadows or dark solid moving objects. Seeing the movement across the fields of animal bodies that look like dark specks, or see things ghosting by in our periphery before first light or at the close of day will mess with your mind.

The shadow that is cast by mid-day sun is not solid yet in the evening the lack of sunlight causes a dark shape to seem like a shadow. That is why you should always take care when you aim your gun at what you are going to pull the trigger on. If you can’t see it, don’t put yourself in a bad situation.

It’s amazing the act of casting a shadow because it can be ether-like, an illusionary solid, or even one of the mind. How could one possibly apply the shadow to hunting aside from something you think you see but might not be, all that it seems.

Here is the opportunity for the shadow of the deer to help us as individuals accept our own shadow.

“The persona is what we would like to be and how we wish to be seen in the world. It is our psychological clothing and it mediates between our true selves and our environment just as our physical clothing presents an image to those we meet. The ego is what we are and know about consciously. The shadow is that part of us we fail to see or know.” (Johnson 4)

We are followed by the shadow of things when ever there is the orb of enlightment. The shadow can not hide. Yet our shadow is constantly with us, yet we forget it is there sometimes whispering in our ears as projection. This projection is cast onto the outer realm of our bodies onto other people, things, or self.

It would be safe to say that we truly aren’t the person we really are except around people that have grown up with us or know us intimately. Outwardly we put on this display to entice other people to befriend or take us seriously with no guarantee they will do such or any idea there has to be a mutual exchange of interactions.

Accepting one's shadow to balance out the dark and light aspects of ourselves deep down is the most honest thing a person can do. Trying to rectify these two poles and bring about a certain amount of unstable balance is a challenge for the person who hunts. Owning up to the facts that we take animal life, ingest that life, and carry on in the wake of what would be considered destructive behavior is embracing that part of oneself that is capable of such things for the sake of survival. Others who are not presented with dealing with this darker half as a hunter still encounter the shadow in their life as love, hate, obsession, resentment, etc. No one is immune or above the shadow. The shadow presents itself in different ways and is never destroyed only countered.

We are solid objects that can look and seem as dark formless purveyors of death from the perspective of the outside viewer when the hunting act is considered. Being honest with yourself on why, how, and to what extent you perform as a hunter rules the way in which  you form a code of morals to deal with the world at large. This world has no limits even when attitudes are projected onto you by others. There is the constant push to be like everyone else so bonds can be formed. Is that really necessary to fit into the square my little circles? Own your darkness and you own yourself; this is when the light breaks through and comes in. Huntress, own thy shadow.

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

PS. Can't wait to see which one of you magazines grabs this up and posts it on the cover, in an article or on a meme.

Literature Cited:
Johnson, Robert A. Owning Your Own Shadow, Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche. Harper Collins Publisher, New York, NY. 1971 Print.

Spewing Fire

Remember this: It is better to spew fire than have smoke blown up a person's rear-end.

At the Genesis of this blog, the administrators had a clear goal. One of the conditions of producing this work was to balance the Death/Life checkbook and answer the question of whether we could produce a blog without proof you're a hunter content or bending to other people's false idea we have to prove anything to them. After each review and discussion, things got more interesting in the huddle.

What is a Death/Life checkbook? It is a tally of how much you kill versus how much you nurture, save or propagate. This balance concerns tallies.

Here is a good example of keeping a tally.

I worked for a boss that wanted his staff to put out rat traps in the attic where dog food was stored. I did not like mice and always heard Bubonic Plague going off in my head like a siren. How can you argue when the plague almost took out Europe?

This was a series of events:

When the first mouse was caught in a mouse trap, the veterinarian marched me up the stairs to the attic. We went inside and he picked up the squirming mouse, released it from the metal snap and as it plopped on the wooden stair landing;  took his Rockport shoe and stomped while smearing the mouse's body all over the wood. There was glaring. I was sick in my mind for a week. After that trauma was over,  the staff would make a mark on the refrigerator for the Rat Kill tab. Offsetting this violent dispatch of dog food poachers upstairs; we saved animal lives downstairs .

What I learned from this scenario was no one likes to have events or actions forced off onto them for the benefit of someone else, even if it's necessary. The way in which you approach something is the long term ruler of how resistant or accepting a person or group is to a task/information. It's assault of the mind.

There is something about keeping tallies. Men and women keep tallies of who they sleep with. People keep tallies of what animals they kill. Some people can not even keep up with their checkbook because they are poor accountants.. There are perfectly balanced tallies and overly imbalanced tallies.

In keeping with the written work a need for cosmic balance was there. Questions arose.

Asking the questions:

Is it necessary to kill something everytime we want to post a piece?
Is it necessary to kill something just for entertainment or writing?
What would we actually post in the way of photography or art?

As huntresses who write, we didn't feel it was ethical for us or prudent to kill everytime we felt there was something we needed to say or spoon it up to the mass consumption for others. After all, the writers on staff would have to live with excessive behavior and wanted to maintain our commonsense when approaching our topics.

One of our mottos (Thank you Marianne) was:

The world is your oyster but if you don't take care of your oyster bed it will die or go dry. No one likes a dry oyster.

Every time we write and post a piece of work somewhere in the world there is an endeavor going on in a habitat that we encourage be it plants, trees, bees, birds, large animals habitats, or anything under the radar that will help along wildlife, women and kids who would venture out in the field.

The question about killing for other peoples entertainment was a definite no. If consumers wanted that kind of material there are hunting personalities or average lay people that would readily fill this void.

Kill photos we decided against because after discussing with non-hunters didn't want them to feel like we were forcing visuals on them that their minds are not geared toward. Its not a game of how many people you can offend or run off because they don't belong in your group. This behavior doesn't make you much of an Ambassador of anything. People do not have weak minds. Their minds just pick and choose what they deem inappropriate because you never know when someone has been abused, raped, or whatever evil people do to them. We wanted to have a little consideration. If you extend consideration it is extended to you.

Another question asked was could we generate content without death photos and still be relevant. Relevance was tossed out the window after that because it was a reminder of how people or groups do things to get all kinds of attention; good or bad. People seeking relevance need to go to Hollywood and play the tabloid game.

Another thought was did we want to make the blog like everyone else or copycat people as a competitive edge? No.

There is something about personally made blogs. If you have ten of the same things people tend to have way too many choices and better make your work a outstanding one or it will gets passed over because its the same old-same old.

Don't be a grape snatcher either.. This person or business sits back, wandering the private and public profiles of their followers just so they can find their next best thing under the guise of "sharing" or "product research" when in fact they are watching you do all the work then pulling the grapes off your vine. Once these are pulled they bask in the abundance of your work while your grapevine is now empty and you can't make your own wine.

There are also people that don't know themselves or are just holding a grudge and go "borrow" from other people then take it in as their identity as mimics do and believe their own lie. At the end of the day they will realize that someone else was in their head and what they made was not completely theirs to begin with.

Recently I read someone's words about writing a college paper. Here at the AOFH the decision was made that we would try to use original content. If there is something worded in a text that would support our critique or argument then credit would be given to that person or source. Its the right thing to do. Additional photography could come from free photo-sharing sites or deceased people where copyright is no longer an issue. The other issue was taking people's personal photos and using it to build a base while taking advantage of their love of outdoor sports to promote ourselves here at the blog. When people who hunt share personal photos of themselves and one person is sitting back taking all that information and building things for themselves then all those "followers" are empty handed except  for an "atta boy" while taking and taking. Online posters to such sites are merely fireflies dancing around a lantern. When their energy has been exhausted, die and then replaced by a new blinded firefly. After a while the entity that reigned supreme over this online site or realm then brushes the dead away and basks in the glow of other people's endeavors.

They say when someone emulates you, it should be a compliment but  that means less than a handful of times. When it becomes chronic, I would guess they are not doing it because they hold you in high regard. One way for online people to get your ideas is to friend you. After that they run rampant in your pages so they can go back to their dark corner of the world to do whatever it is they do and call it their own while building their facade for relevance in whatever group they call friend or foe.  The truth of the matter is,  with online blocking of participants, you can easily find what is the same as yours because Google + or Facebook puts it in your sites as what you have in common. Imagine that?

Wait til  these nameless souls have an identity crisis while looking around at the match house they built only to find it burning while whispering, "This is not me." The true people they treated like crap will be long gone. It always happens. Lonely at the end.

We try not to hate on people but some attitudes have us rolling in the hay barn come nightfall such as the--born with a silver spoon in the mouth people. They either choke on that spoon with their haughtiness or need a good half a bottle of black draught to relieve them of the problem once the silver spoon gets caught in their social digestive tract. I have met some grossly wealthy people who were not pretentious and accepted you no matter what. I have unfortunately also been in the company of people holding their head up so high they look like a turkey chicks about to drown when it rains. There are also the types that want to be the braggart leader and threaten anyone who rocks their little world. To them I say,  "Grow up and get over yourself. Your days are numbered." I will say for these people I still hope for a spark of humanity in the shallow empty sausage casing they walk around in. The unproven truth is there is no substance inside and if there is maybe its hidden by the facade. Why? Because this individual is taking from everyone else. (Sit back and see who gives themselves away.)

While our fearless non-leader is gone we have put up some more personal pictures for your viewing. Staff will be going back over the writings and adding more interesting content which will be posted in a couple of weeks if not sooner. Enjoy your time and remember to be the person you are and not the reflection of someone you think you should try to be or what looks good.

Be yourself that is all that matters.

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Genji and the Scope of Things.

Remember this: There is always an eye looking through the cross-hairs, hedges, or the peep hole.

Disclaimer: Before you read ahead make sure you've talked to your parents about the birds and the bees, and don't get the itchy finger to google the word Shunga.

Valentine's Day is upon us. Love or resentment is in the air. Card, candy and flower companies are dancing in the streets and grown women everywhere are fearing they will get a plush teddy bear instead of a three day weekend to Paris, the City of Love.

There are probably many a man co-miserating with his brethren, as are women. To extend the olive branch, I wondered to myself in the spirit of hunting, what could possibly be explored in the way of love, Japanese literature, guns, and hiccups. Hiccups are like love. You never know when it's going to hit you. You then flop around like fish trying to get rid of it. You could hyperventilate in a brown paper bag; works for love and hiccups.

I will be the first to admit; I have no idea what I am doing here.

Onward.

Somewhere in time a poet put to pen a sonnet, dripping with emotion. What exactly that emotion was depended on how upset or enamored the poet was with the object of affection. This could have been done privately, publicly or completely withheld. Rejection is an awful shame, no matter where it's passed off.

I haven't met a hunter that would stop, write a bit of prose before he shot an animal; unless he's multi-tasking.

One book of privilege to read is The Tales of Genji. In the Tales of Genji, a classic Japanese work written by noblewoman and lady-in-waiting, Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11^th century, you find lots of intrigue. The phrase, “I will make you love me” comes to mind.

Upon my reading, all things are up for debate. Moving on with the idea here, the story is about a man, a woman , and a lot of forbidden love. What could make Valentine's Day any better than a good forbidden love saga, kidnapping and Stockholm syndrome? Secrets...lots of secrets. There is also the mention of hunting.

One interesting word that is used is kaimami or “peeking”. This could also be a version of Peeping Tom-isms or voyeurism. If you've elevated peeping to an art form maybe you're just playing out a past life where screen action was all you got. Oh that love-from-afar. The time period for this tale is during the Heian and Kamakura courts. There seem to be a lot of reference to forced or coerced sexual encounters. The end game fact being, the woman's acknowledgment of being the conquest. Nowadays, if a man or woman forces themselves off on another it's rape, assault or stalking. You can't force a person to love you but these Japanese characters seem to do a bam up job of it. Even Pepe LePew got the cat to love him in the end. Stink and all.

There is four ways this kaimami plays itself out:

1. One night stands (Yep!)
2. Sexual initiation by the woman (Yep!)
3. Period of unrequited love, unacknowledged or even secret love ending as the man acts out his desires on the object of his affection. (Say what? I weighed the number of chicken shits in this world. Yep, nature is definitely out of balance.)
4. Both parties are already in love and care for each other as a natural progression of sentiment. (Like mold on bread).

As you travel through the story, you find incidents that are parallel to hunting in some rather humorous and beautiful ways. The act of hunting itself is worked into the stories fabric as analogous to courtship. These particular passages uphold the male hunter as the aggressor, so not to point the ugly finger at men, we'll just set that fact aside because it doesn't seem fair. We'll blame the Amazons later to make it even.

Here is a passage to read and reflect:

“In the first episode of the Ise monogatari (Tales of Ise; 905), a poem-tale (uta monogatari) that greatly influenced Murasaki Shikibu, a man of exemplary courtly sensitivity is hunting near the ruined old capital of Nara when he catches a glimpse of two beautiful sisters through a gap in their hedge. Courtship is here analogous to the hunt, or an extension of it, with the women as the symbolic prey and the hedge as the enclosing wilderness. Following the homo neccans pradign, the man is compelled to aggression; but instead of killing the prey, he sublimates his violence by tearing a strip from his hunting robe to dash off an elegantly allusive poem about the fabric’s random design and his amorous confusion. The poem suggests that the forceful rubbing of a moss-fern pattern onto the cloth reflect the sisters’ powerful imprint on the poet’s heart.” (Bargen 1)

I recall previous writings, where the hunter is stumbling through the woods when he encounters a beautiful woman, much to his downfall. Here you have a hunter going through the woods, spying on women (prey) through a gap in 'their hedge'. The hedges are the enclosing wilderness as a barrier to the women.Yet he is compelled to aggression. Why is this?

I wondered if this weren't another one of those sneaky symbolic switcher-ma-roo moments where “hedges”,  “enclosing wilderness” and “moss-fern pattern”meant a woman's body part and that made the man aggressive, whilst rubbing in amorous confusion. It doesn't take a scientist, after you peruse a lot of Japanese Erotic Art (Shunga) such as Katsushika Hokusai, The Adonis Plant, to figure it out.  I do snicker at the ones with the octopi which make me think someone was taking a jab at old dudes back in the day. They were probably all arms, hands, and gums. No dentures need apply.

Community Service: Just look at great art. It will change your life.

What makes a man crazy? What makes a woman crazy? Prolonged isolation during this time period could make a man crazy. Those long lonely nights. On the other hand, the writer could have just as easily gave the character a Pepe LePew attitude. I then think of the current day. Men and women are just or if not more so aggressive in this endeavor. One could wonder if it's the idea  all hunting is an aggressive act, like shopping on Black Friday. Not to say, this hunter was a savage but the terms, “ exemplary courtly sensitivity” sprang up so we could assume there was a certain amount of reserve building up. Once “in the wilderness” man wants to revert back to his bush-whacking state.

I know....I am awful.

The hunter turns poet as the dynamic of his acts and mind change. There is also the symbolic rubbing of the moss-fern pattern to consider. I am thinking this might be symbolic of a more erotic nature. Depending on how fast he wrote and rubbed said strip of fabric.

Fast forward to this century, man is still spying through the hedges dressed in Mossy Oak, feeling all poetic up in that tree, or deer stand; aggressively amorous and confused at the same time. Logging on to the internet, those same hunters are spying on women through the internet peep hole; probably still dressed in Mossy Oak, feeling amorous and unfulfilled. It's a hazard. Simultaneously peeping through a rifle scoop at deer, lusting after their horns and meat. Whatever the eyes see, the eyes covet.

When you consider looking into the cross-hairs, that is a form of spying through the hedges except you are looking at wild game, which in other views can be analogous to women. Hunters and huntresses still desire the animals they view within the scope, binocular, or even lazy eye.

Courtship-wise not much is happening because people are truly isolated and apprehensive. Herein, there is a substitution of sacrifice for the dark shadow the hunter feels towards the women by tearing a strip off the old hunting robe to write about the design. Oh distraction! There has also been comparison to hunting as a dance or courtship between hunter and prey. The prey ends up dead.

I don't know any hunters that would be moved off the task of hunting because if they want to see a beautiful naked girl can google that while in a deer stand and go on a self-date. People don't need each other anymore. We have become obsolete in seductive circles. Reproduction wise a doctor can do that for you without even so much as an orgasm. Where is the fun in that? Living in deprivation I tell you!

As we look at another passage:

In a myth recorded in the Kojiki (Record of Ancient Matters; 712), a male desire and longing lead to the violation of taboo and to pursuit by female furies. In the archetypal hunt, life requires killing and killing necessitates sacrificial ritual. By retaining the hunt as an aristocratic pastime and sacrifice as an aesthetic gesture, the opening episode from the Ise monogatari signals the transition to the prevalent form of Heian courtship ritual, in which the aggressive gesture of kaimami seems totally absorbed into aesthetic pleasure. While the kaimami courtship ritual in the Ise episode still reflects elements of the underlying archetypal patter of raw force and the confrontation with death in a hunt, kaimami in the Genji is almost entirely dissociated from this pragmatic function. Only the occasional hunting disguise remains. In the Genji, the raw violence of hunting is reduced to a male social discourse of cunning necessitated by the sequestering of women. (Bargen 1-2)

The sequestering of women? Get out of here. All you have to do is look at a person's social media wall. If you have all that to look at why would you need me?

Kaimami's aggression turns into aesthetic pleasure for some people because all they want to do is peep. The moment said peeper decides to act on his ambitions and in what way, is what causes the problem. Not having the aptitude to stop oneself is a red flag you need some help. Every time we turn on the television to watch anything we become voyeurs. People love to watch their soft porn love scenes because it's their guilty pleasure. We could think in terms here of a hunter looking through his scope at a ten point buck and his ambitions are on the deer.He instantaneously lusts after it. This does end in violence if he hits the target; then there is meat for all.

Turning our attention to a scope on a gun or even binoculars, we find hunters and huntresses spying on things close up and far away. Some even spy on land owners or each other.

Now class lets delve into a woman's “mono no ke”. This term loosely means monster or spirit but the term is not always what it appears in the Japanese language. I would think its that aspect of the vision of a woman that dries men crackers. Same for women.....just one whiff is all it takes. What confuses me is the idea that looking through a hole gives you power over another thing. Maybe that is why we see a lot of eyeball art. Eyeballs everywhere; even on the one dollar bill.

“The hole in the fence not only serves men to access their power over women; it is also the site of women’s mono no ke - the spirits who intimidate their audience and aim to correct men’s excessive vision.” (Bargen 3)

I read this and this song was in my head:

There is a place in France,

Where the naked ladies dance

There's a hole in the wall

Where the men can see it all.

With that being said, this is what fathers are for: to poke those eyes out.

“In the Genji it is not the fulfillment or frustration of desire that becomes the focus of the narrative so much as the elegant and elaborate process of courtship: the poetry, the carefully chosen words, the calligraphy, the choice of paper, the evocation scent, the overheard music.” (Bargen 5)

When you stand back and look at hunting, it is elegant and elaborate as a process and past time from early man, to present day trials and tribulations. Somewhere in the down scaling of hunting as an art, with its social interactions, we have lost something; the rituals. When I say rituals, I don't mean wearing the same dirty underwear or carrying around a dried up rabbit foot, but the intercourse between people who can form relationships where no relationship existed. You could find this in other ways but people are not. The competitive spirit robs these acts as well because its a back biting industry. Then you have the paranoid.

Courtship is almost non-existent in this day and age. People have no clue what they are doing. Now it's speed dating, cyber-sex, self-help books, and geographical abstinence.

What of our lovelorn hunters and huntresses? There is no ritual exchange of poetic emotion or the revealing of innermost feelings. It's a desert with no water or cracker in sight.

Lastly.......

“Never “I love you” in the unmistakably direct emotional cascade of Romantic Love that flooded through the courts of Europe several hundred of years later; but, above all, never “I hate you.” (Bargen 5-6)

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Sources Cited:

Bargen, Doris G. A Woman's Weapon: Spirit Possession in the Tale of Genji. Hawaii, USA: University of Hawai'l Press. (1997). pp.1-6, Print.

Being Taken Seriously Or Not?

Remember this: Maintain your reputation at all times. Don't let anyone drag you down.

Recently, I have been seeing a lot of blogs and posts on the behavior of women, I assume, that hunt. I  thought every once in a while you have people that call out others who are charicatures of the hunting endeavor, male or female.

My mind set was traveling along the lines of differing view points. I asked myself some questions.

Do women want to be taken seriously overall?

I would think the answer to this is yes. Women actually do want to be out in the field with their prospective other, even if they are man handling a gun or not. On the other hand, they might want some me time while the prospective other is out beating the bushes or talking a lot of bat guano with his friends. This is a win-win situation.

People in general like to feel accomplished. Believe it or not. Some women do feel the need to be regarded as the prospective other's rare jewel, instead of shame and regret. Men like to know they have something rare that their buddies don't have or probably never will have. That is one of the underlying tones of trophy hunting. How good a specimen it is and if its rare.

Rarity.

Men will brag on their woman like they would brag on their favorite hunting dog, gun, or truck.
Men are just simple that way.

As for security sake, I asked the question to myself: What if the prospective other was injured, which caused them to be unable to provide? What if there was no prospective other?

Women do not like to worry about the basic necessities of life, such as food and shelter. If the other half of your union, be it legal or not, is down for the count, you certainly want some reassurance  that life can be handled with very little anxiety. If you are by yourself, the last thing you need to be thinking about is how someone is going to circumvent what you have to do to survive.

If a woman ever left a man it was because of anxiety to her thinking.

How does seeing women prostrated on social media in pseudo hunting photos help the cause of women in outdoor sports?

Undoubtedly, it is not helping the role of women to much. It has generated a topic of interest. These pseudo images do generate a lot of merchandise sales for the product, but not necessarily the model.
As for posted photos, it's either going to make you want to be like that, exercise like crazy, or go on an eating binge with ho-hos. There is no way in this lifetime you'll ever look like that without a plan and commitment.

If you put a photo up of a nice looking, mostly naked woman in hunting gear she will be all the craze by men's post. Another woman will view the reaction, then mimic it hoping to get the same result. She will get the same result but not the one she was hoping for. In her mind, she was hoping to find the one. In real time, she's just being objectified like the model in the photo. Unfortunately for her, the only one getting paid is the model.

Posting seductive photos of oneself is zero in your bank account.  You also open yourself up for ridicule, losing someone you could have had a chance with, or total ruination; at least in your mind. On social media, smearing someone can go all the way to the end of Google Planet. That is as far as it gets.

Hunting aside, there are people out there with low moral character. You've made yourself a target for people of low moral character who will stalk you while making you slowly pull your photos out of sight. There is such a thing as negative attention.

Would a woman that hunts want something better for herself? Does the belief the questionable, sleazy redneck is the way to go?

Then again, you can find a person of low moral character wearing a business suit. Trust me when I say, they are on the internet right now googling.There are some people that do take pictures of themselves, but before social media hit, that was something private for yourself.

Is it necessary to show the whole world what your mama gave you?

Sadly, men might comment up and down on a post of  naughty girl pictures. When it comes to their mate they don't feel like sharing, especially with the whole world and their buddies.

As a guy, do I really want ten of my buddies getting a good look at my gal's back or front porches? What if said buddies got the idea to come over while you weren't there?

Male animals fight over females all the time, good breeders or not.

Does a woman want her picture posted up beside a trophy kill? Isn't she the same thing? One more conquest to claim or reminiscence over? Valueless and the topic of some gaggle of men's degrading comments? The butt of someone's jokes that makes others perceive her as less of a human?

Anytime you place a visual out in the public you are inadvertently, unintentionally advertising. Let us get one thing straight though, people do know what they are doing and what will come of it. In this case, do not feel so bad for them when overtly sexual comments ensue. The road travels both ways on this subject. .

The creepy little mind is what connects the dots on what the viewer thinks you're saying even if your message is different from the one they receive. With that being said, I do exclude the more formal sports where tweed is worn (only because tweed is awesome). You don't have to dress in camo all the time given the game you are chasing. We are looking at allowances here because they exist.

If there is a group of people that contend women were not a part of hunting and shooting before, this is a valid statement. (For those that say, this is not true, go visit a museum, that illustrates the idea; a museum where out-of-date reliquaries are left out of mainstream; it is history, not current). Instead of being a by-standers, they are actual participants. There is also within that group, like minded people that feel to maintain a momentum of self-decorum or even self respect, it would be prudent to exercise some kind of restraint when being a role model (even if you don't think you are one or chose to be one) for other women. I can understand arguments ensuing on this subject. People tend to want to do whatever they please, even if it brings them grief at their own hands.

Overall there is an undertone of hunting being under attack, so how one would present themselves to avoid a bad reputation to the outdoor sports, or to oneself, is something you need to take into account. Never make what you are endeavoring to do look bad. If you make it look bad it will reflect poorly on you. I say that, but the Herblock that I am, must ask the tough questions.

You are your own salesman.

I would think it would be the same thing for women. If before in the past other women were not mixed up in the hunting soup, but now you had your chance, why would you do things to make it seem uncomely or a turn off?

Women in hunting want to make strides without setbacks. Once you can overcome the supposed difference in men and women, there can be a camaraderie between the two sexes when out in the field. If that leads into something else that is a little bit stronger than a passing physical infatuation, then so be it. You will not suffer for it. If you take up hunting merely to find a husband or a boyfriend, eventually he will see right through you. You'll be back at the house, as a non-participant or by-stander.

There is also the scenarios where you will be thinking you've found "a live one" only to be disappointed. The person is trolling for someone they can enjoy for the moment or a fantasy.

The bigger question is overall as a group, do women want to be respected for our skill and our respectable position in society? Do we use hunting only as a platform to get a date or a husband?
No one that I know of likes to do something for the sake of nothing. At the same time, one person would be insulted that the strides they make in the global outlook on hunting is degraded by the acts of a handful of misguided souls.

There is a big difference in sharing yourself with one or two people versus sharing yourself with the world.  Even with one or two people, they only glimpse a small fragment of you and not the deeper self of who you are. Non-disclosure can work wonders for your self-esteem.

As a female who hunts, I don't think about this as I get ready to go spend my time in the woods or on stand. I just enjoy myself and let that be a controversy for late night blogging after the hunting is done.

Again do you want to be a person who posts as an activist with words of rage while squirming in your computer chair hoping to get someone to notice your tirade? Do you desire to get in an online altercation or are you just going to do what you do without all that tantrum crap?

Really it boils down to a personal choice. What do you chose to do? Sexual innuendo photo on social media or not?

Do you want to be taken seriously or not? If so, act like it.

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

The Mystique of the Whitetail

Remember this: People see deer everywhere even in their dreams.

Since whitetail season has opened on Sept 1, I have thought alot about the mystique of the animal.  The deer can suit itself to the circumstances. Depending on the terrain, the whitetail seems to be able to blend in, being a russet, tawny, pied color markings for the brush areas. When the deer comes out of the hardwood forest, the coat can be beech tree gray. There are deer now showing the albino trait. It can look like a log when it is lying down, or be standing in broomstraw eyeballing you down. Most bucks learn to stay in the tree line while a doe or two makes themselves a very easy target. If you have one buck to eight doe, I guess this would make for a wonderful strategy. Make no mistake, deer especially in herds if they are truly wild have a strategy for giving the hunter a wide berth. Unless they are not paying attention.They have the inate ability to move through brush without making a sound. A hunter can't miss the twig with its snap that sounds like dynamite to your ears.Their legs can look like thin trees or saplings. Everything about the deer is visually deceptive.
Deer in different parts of the country vary in size and weight depending on the availability of nutrients. These nutrients can be wild grown but agriculture and food plot management by the discriminating hunter can supplement any shortage. They eat whatever is seasonal. If you go by weight a buck could be 135-165 lbs down South but up North the weight could be 300 lbs. Does are between 125-160 lbs. When you are hunting them, they don't make for very big targets especially running. If you hog dress one out, you find that you lose a percentage (25%) of what that weight would be in meat because so much goes to bone, entrails, skin, and antlers. Don't be surprised when you go to the wildgame processor and get back much less than what you thought you had: you are not eating the complete deer.

There are about thirty subspecies distributed from Canada to Central America. All of these can overlap and interbreed causing a mixture of varying physcial traits
Because of their adaptability, they can outsmart you unless you're using some high tech gadgetry but its not under heard of for someone to jump a buck. In this day and age, technology has taken all of the challenge out of the hunt.

At one point in their evolution, they were solely diurnal but when the concept of hunting was introduced they become more and more nocturnal in their browsing habits to avoid being killed. In the poor light of nightfall, you may see the ghostly shadow of movement as they weave in and out of the tree line. The deer will walk down the inside of canal ditches to avoid being seen on flat land, hide in briar balls, or sleep beside a barn where farm animals are kept. They will even fall in with a herd of farm animals just to seem like one of the crowd. The browse that they eat can consist of 600 or more different kinds of plant material.

Whitetail are masters of skulking only second to turkey. Bears and cougars are just silent and deadly.
Whitetail do not migrate, which benefits the hunter because the home range can be a square mile. Even if during the breeding season, a buck is looking for does but will add a couple of miles to his roaming area. A buck could have a base camp, if you will, where he will move out but then come back fairly quick. This is a survival mechanism. Go but don't stay gone to long. I have often wondered at this particular rigid philosophy. If the habitat changes then so when the creature.

With this said, looking for game trails is a good habit, especially heavily used game trails. Usually where they feed and where they bed is a short distance. They will take the same path you might cut through the woods but be weary. It can be abandoned just as fast as it is made.Usually you'll see lots of tracks, scat, or the smell of breeding season as homones and urine are cast about. Sometimes in the case of trampling, the current path you have found might change by a couple of hundred yards so walking about to assess the situation or rethink your strategy is a must.Sometimes they just find something a little better to enjoy.

When the breeding season comes you might get a chance because hormones are raging and stupidity or carelessness reigns supreme. While breeding the buck will show himself more out in the open. He'll seek out and clash with other bucks for mating rites. Bucks will walk themselves to death while in the rut. The mating season will see them eat and drink less which puts them in a poor state of health. This could also contribute to their 'slip of the mind' when trying to avoid being shot.
With this being said, a buck can hide right underneath you for the remainder of his days on a square mile of land. He will see you before you see him. He lives there and he knows where you are. I argue again, if you use cameras this will upend your hunting experience to some  degree. Everywhere I look there is a stand, a camera, and a photo. All you have to do is come back, sit and wait.

Whitetails are color-blind but they see motion really well. This probably contributed to the high sales of camo cover to help the hunter be undetectable. As a rule, a buck sometimes ignores a stationary object unless there is a sound or smell that tips him off. A deer can see you blink your eye from 60 yards away. I argue this point now because if you went by television the deer must be acclimated to a person in a tree with little forethought of danger. Being really still then waiting for them to turn their head is something you would really have to remember unconsicously when you are excited about one walking into your sights. Fast or sudden movements will not win you the day.

Their hearing is acute. They can hear your stomach growling, a twig snap, or a click of some metal bumping. Muffling stand parts is essential. You can fool them with rattling or grunt calls which mimic the different sexes or offspring. You would really need to know what that sounds like because you just can't blow your horn an expect them to accept you for another deer.

With these few tidbits being said it is not always an animal that is easy to hunt. I do experience internal conflict on this subject due to the relative ease to kill one now. Agriculture and human population growths have made the whitetail homeland smaller. Sightings are more frequent especially at night when they hang around highways eating the grass off the side of the road. 

Deer that have become less inclined to avoid humans are not much sport because they start to look and act like a tame goat or cow. This makes them lose their mystique. Even though mystique is an illusion it is one worth chasing blindly after.

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~