Serviceman, Fisherman, and Always Suave

 

 

 

Remember this: Everyone has lost someone at some point to War.

 

This is my grandfather, Harry. I never knew him. He died in an automobile accident before I was born.  He served in the military and fought in WWII. His guilty pleasure was German made riding boots. By the way, I come from horse people. An avid fisherman, more so than a hunter, he was a colorful character with cigarette in hand.

 

A couple of days ago there were numerous posts on the internet regarding service men and women. I wanted to post a short piece on people in my family that were in the service. It would seem my family likes to fight. My brother was in the Air Force. Both my cousins were in the Marines. My other relatives were in the Vietnam Conflict but passed away. One North Carolina relative was in the military in WWII as well but at 80 he was still doing chin-ups like a boss. I had relatives in fights all over Early America and in other countries and sea.

 

I usually do not like to glorify war but think veterans deserve their due for fighting no matter what side they are on. I also believe veterans are not treated appropriately for the PTSD they suffer from, the lifelong disability, and being cut loose with no foundation to attach to and drifting on the four winds.

I believe when countries have to resort to war or shooting the random missile at another country then someone in the politics or dissension does not have the capacity to act as a leader, show diplomacy, have communication skills, problem-solving, and the ability to bring people together instead of rip world communities apart. War is an indicator of gross dysfunction on many levels.

I also try to be somewhat sensitive to other countries because from their side they probably feel justified in fighting even if on the losing side. What side ever wins?

When governments see so many of their constituents dying and being mauled a person would think the politicians would go to greater lengths to avoid sending people on a death mission. Those same politicians are not going to leave their seat, jump a plane and dive out to help do the ground work. They are sitting in air-condition.

 

I don't see the point in taking a healthy individual and send them to a place that incapacitates the soldier for the rest of their life, if they live through it. But enough about this.

I wish I had known my grandfather.

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

The Mundane White Deer

Remember this: Try as adults might, some things are just ridiculous.

The new celebrity on the Hunting block is an eleven-year-old boy who shot a white deer. From the articles posted to the internet, all of the hunting shows and magazines are calling either to congratulate or to recruit for the story of the week. That must put a dent in grown men’s agendas, who are striving to get into the hunting business and have been up-started by a child.

The little boy legally killed the deer in his home state of Michigan. I say that is Michigan’s problem. This clears him of any wrong-doing, legally.

From the articles, the parent and boy admit there were several hunting participants out to kill this animal. It is fairly skinny so there couldn't have been much meat except for burger and sausage.

The prudent question to ask here is: why advertise this when it will be gifted with negative connotations and adult attacks on a child? By now the boy realizes he has adults grouping around him like the buffalo so I doubt he feels unsafe.

It isn’t about losing your right to hunt. It’s not about a child’s right to hunt. It’s not really much about nothing. It is just about the spectacular, spectacular which I have come to abhor.

I have seen this many times on the internet; persecution and laments. I guess someone wants to prove their point of being singled out, misrepresented, and disavowed. Also, the idea that someone needs other people to rush to their aid to validate their entitled or legal right to do something seems a bit so yesterday with this hunting fodder.

There are posted by others stating the albino or white deer is an anomaly and should be smited off the breeding landscape of deerdom.

There is also the abuse subjugated on the child by the public via the parent wanting their child to be famous. I couldn’t do that to my son, as I have said before. I want to protect him not toss him out in the fray, empty-handed or for money’s sake.

I also know there are people that do not like you. They will one plus or like such things to get a rise out of you because deep down you crawl under their skins. You’re welcome.

My problem with this tired storyline came in the form of the SCDNR posting an article about this little boy to their website. It was ambiguous as to whether the SCDNR supported it or not. I am sure there will be a sound biological reason for the post.

This drama was playing out in Michigan, not South Carolina. People have shot albino and pied deer here. It’s not made into a three ring circus, which is what hunting has become. Setting the tone for showing your ignorance, attacking your fellow man, prostrating children out to start or win arguments on debates, and just low down dirty morals and ethics.

I began reading the posts on the SCDNR Facebook page. One candid misogynist fellow commented, with colorful profanity, that women perusing the SCDNR Facebook page needed to stay at the shopping mall and keep posts to ourselves, as we didn’t hunt.  Of course, the SCDNR took the comments down which I was thankful for. I guess the attitude against women hunting in South Carolina is alive and well in some people.

It also illustrates how the article can polarize South Carolina constituents using the SCDNR Facebook page to be for or against this little kid shooting a deer. I wondered whether the poster at the SCDNR understood or realized they were providing an outlet to make the constituents using the services of the SCDNR look like ignorant southerners or fiends out to attack a child. Why would someone do that? Is it that important to cause a controversy?

I don’t live in the land of fairy tales and people do act the same all over the world to different degrees, but why invite the devil into your hunting lodge?

Granted the SCDNR hopefully does understand as a state agency they should not dabble in picking and choosing individuals that go along with personal beliefs or agendas. Those posts should be for their private pages. This service the SCDNR provides is for everyone, not people just on one bandwagon. It was not education because this fodder can be found elsewhere and commented on outside of the SCDNR.

People didn’t seem to be pleased with the SCDNR person posting this article. It’s too disruptive and that is the reason for it; disruption.

When I considered the fall-out from the white deer I thought people were concerned this little boy would think that there is nothing he can’t tromp upon because he is entitled by law. What happens one day when he gets older and this ideal has stuck with him? This ideal that has been re-enforced by adults and he goes outside of the law because he feels entitled? What then when he cries foul to being persecuted or misrepresented?

I asked myself, what is the real message being sent to children?

I can understand the people of that area being upset. There was probably some faux ownership of this animal that spiraled down into perceiving it as a pet. There was also the hope that maybe one day they too would see it. Now that day is gone unless another one appears. The next white deer can be shot down because it is genetically undesirable, legal to hunt, or just to spite everyone for killing it because you can.

There are hunting participants that do consider the sentiment of non-hunters. They see these animals as something to keep around because it gives people hope even if the animal is a mundane.

The dark side of this is hunting participants that will go out of their way to kill any white deer just to hold it up to non-hunters’ faces, grin and say,  “You can do nothing about this.” Then walk off with a happy spite because they won. Won what I say? They have subjected another person to loss and molestation while making themselves look less than human. Maybe that is what human is; spiteful and vindictive.

Given the child has some square right to flaunt his quarry for bragging rights amongst the internet hunters, which was secured by his family. It is not like he did an epic thing. He just shot another deer of a different color. Not that I am down-playing his accomplishment, if that is what you call it, but this is true. He is not a character in Homer’s Iliad that quested for something and destroyed terrifying beasts along the way. The white deer probably walked by or was on a corn pile. It didn’t jump up into the stand or run from the trees with fangs bared.

I shake my head and laugh at this kind of thing.

Not too far from where I live dwells twin, albino girls. Their mother is of African descent. I would watch their mother braid their powder white hair down at the park. Sometimes they would ride bikes in the evening. I wonder sometimes if people could have decided to take their life at birth because they were considered genetic anomalies or weak genes. I then reflect on the treatment of albinos in Africa. They have their body parts stolen by force to go in potions or witch doctor remedies. One lives a normal life, the other in fear, and the white deer doesn’t know it is in dire circumstance because of its color. It gets killed anyway because it’s legal or someone wants its head and hide. I could beg the question to let it just live. There will always be another person with that desire to shoot it.

I’m waiting for the photo and story of a baby in diapers jumping into the fray of a wild hog herd, kill them all with one stroke, changes its diaper, writes its own article and shows up on the Joe Rogan show or the Sportsman’s Channel. All while planning to save everyone from hunger with just one fish.
Lessons learned:
Everything has a price on its head.

Everything can be ripped from this Earth for whatever reasoning.

Nothing is sacred.

Written by: W Harley Bloodworth

~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.

A Closer Inspection of Non-Hunters and Hunters.

Remember this: Throughout the  years of hunting, social media as we know it today did not exist in the same form.

In the good old days people came together for social functions be it hunting, dancing or celebrating some special occasion on a regular basis. Neighbors interacted and depended on others in their community while relying on hunting as a resource to provide food in good times and bad. Hunting was a social function and people physically spoke and interacted face to face. That is not done anymore.

If a hunter did claim wild game for food there was the option of tanning a hide or in later years mounting a trophy head. If someone came over to your house that is where you displayed your mount to others that you most likely were very close to. There would be no judgments except for the appreciation of the endeavors based on your time spent afield.

In the current age of media, photo sharing has become very present on social media. Anyone can post or present a photo of any subject no matter how pristine or vulgar the image may be. Depending on the individual psychological make-up or de-sensitivity of a person, how that image or subject matter therein contained will be ingested or processed is left to be seen. 

In the past there was not an extreme pinpoint attack on hunting whereas now the evidence of such an attack is rampant. This has been increased by the availability of the internet and sharing sites. There are many arguments from both sides of the duck blind which requires close scrutiny. Before those arguments can be approached who are the players and why do they hunt? Why do they not?

For a moment let's take a closer inspection of people that do hunt. People hunt for many reasons. What prompts people to hunt? For all intents and purposes, the reason people hunt is for food. That is a pretty basic fundamental human need. There are several scenarios that could lead to this. Let's imagine a few for a moment.

• There is an unemployed single parent that has a child or children but for reasons are denied the ever hated EBT food assistance program on the part of working people. Most people do not believe life is lived as a commune where one person does work while the other does nothing but eat off their back. They do not take into consideration the person in question may have a hard time getting back on their feet or even feel they are entitled to help these people. This is because most people think the charity case should be achieving in their timeline and considerations. Other than stealing out of peoples gardens, shop lifting, or taking the ornamental cabbage at the local bank that has been so nicely landscaped: hunting is an option to explore. This parent would probably forego the problem of what other people think at learning to hunt. In order to feed their children, hunting solves starvation. The dilemma here in their psyche would be: I have to kill something to feed my children. Who is more important? My children or the animal in question. If there is no other workable option to supplement nourishment what one believes could be over-ridden to provide for the family.
• Due to an abundance of farmed livestock, processed meats are readily available at the grocery stores. Unfortunately there are many reports that processed livestock that are not free range might be providing questionable health problems due to antibiotics, feeding habits, and processing techniques. The discerning health nut may turn to eating just vegetables while excluding meat. Then again the option of hunting wild game and solely living off of the food you hunt brings a wider health benefit while supplementing with free ranged livestock that are only farm raised.
• A person may decide to take a vacation on a planned hunting excursion. The goal is to hunt a specimen that is worthy to be food, a trophy for appreciation and nostalgia, and memories. Even when a person is hunting the idea of food is at the front of his/her unconscious. You do not want to kill a diseased animal because what would you do with the meat? You can't really eat the meat. You would only be doing a mercy kill and keeping others of that species from becoming infected unless the problems are based on old age.  The problem herein would be the treatment of the body.
• A person is employed with a conservation agency. The employee has been directed to hunt and terminate X amount of a species for the delicate balance on a plot of land.
• A farm owner has a herd of cows that have been menaced by pack animals or the individual varmint. He decides to protect his herd of cows by trapping, tracking or hunting.

Even though each situation is not covering all the reasons or ideas on why people decide to hunt, it can set the stage for a discussion for each situation. This kind of conversation is more appropriate because it is not single or feeble minded. People at times live their lives like mules with blinders on. They only think and go one way. Why would a person decide not to hunt? Given that not all non-hunters are vegans should be taken into consideration.

• There is an abundance of meat and vegetables available at the grocer. The individual does not want to know how food is processed but only wants the food to be readily available while no questions are asked. As long as they don't see what they consider  is a murder scene decide not to dwell on the details only the outcome: food on the plate.
• The individual decides personally eating meat is not for them but doesn't condemn hunting.
• Due to some previous trauma an individual decides that they do not believe in the slaughter of animals but eats plant material only. Even though the vegan has more reverence for animal life because the mentality is that animals are equal to humans. Plants are like objects without a life force yet feeds animals/people to help them maintain life. In this situation it seems the individual doesn't have a full grasp on the necessity for sustenance to maintain an optimum level of life.
• People who are detached emotionally from human relationships for psychological reasons. They maintain animals are basically pure because animals are instinctual and simple. Animals give love freely and unconditionally without making demands on them. They believe animals are helpless and oblivious to the fact that animals kill one another or people. The person that has no reverence for human life or their own because they exhibit self hate. Animals are elevated above human life and would be willing to take part in terrorist like activities to satisfy their open ended agendas. This kind of person would kill all humans and let animals take the world regardless of real life animal behavior.
• Persons that only eat plant material but holds the belief that all life on planet Earth can eat the same kind of uniformed food regardless of nutritional requirements, there will be no fighting or killing within or outside of species, no living thing shall eat another, and basic universal harmony through non violence from birth until death.

The main goal into this inquiry is to take a look at a particular vantage point from the differing sides. Given these simple examples non-hunters are driven more by emotional and psychological reason but reject biological instincts to hunt for their food in the wild. Hunting is rejected as a part of the self or the identity.

Hunters are driven by instinctual needs for food but vary in concept based on emotional and psychological reasoning. Basic biological instinct is not rejected but accepted as a part of the self and the hunter identity.

The crisis lies in the suggestion by both sides that the perspectives of the other are flawed and how this perspective is addressed or handled.

Could it be that non-hunters are trying to make up for a guilt where the human population has exploded hence strangling out wildlife and their lands? Is it so that hunter's are stewards of that ever decreasing space trying to manage the wildlife on it? Does there lay a possibility of compromise on each groups' behalf to come to a civil agreement without a winner. These are reasonable questions. Could there be better questions: yes.

If the argument is more important than finding a solution then the cause is just an illusion to help perpetrate a pointless never-ending war.

It is worth a closer inspection but there are other topics to explore.

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

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