GAY-BASHING BARBARIANS AT THE DLI GATES…Squid considers Squidself a fairly evolved creature (for an ink-squirting invertebrate). And as such, Squid is creeped out by certain un-evolved behaviors. For instance, Squid believes discrimination against gay men and lesbians is barbaric.

And yet, apparently, enough stone-age superstitions about homosexuality persist that such discrimination continues to occur—even here in forward-thinking Monterey.

Last week, the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military (CSSMM) issued a report celebrating the fact that fewer Arabic speakers were discharged from the armed services this year than in previous years.

Nathaniel Frank of CSSMM attributes the drop to selective enforcement of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

“The military may be firing fewer Arabic experts for homosexuality to avoid public embarrassment during a time of dire shortages of Arabic linguists,” Frank said.

The insider Web site www.govexec.com reports that the military has fired 55 Arabic speakers for being gay in the past decade. Many of these were students at the Defense Language Institute, like the one gay man fired this year.

The Washington Blade, in a story earlier this year marking the 10th anniversary of the policy, quoted a representative of the Center for Military Readiness, a Neanderthal…um, that is, conservative…think tank.

“The most important question to ask about the homosexual students dismissed from the DLI is why they were allowed to enter in the first place,” Center officials said in a written statement. “For many months, they occupied spaces that could have been offered to eligible trainees who could have been learning Arabic, Korean, Farsi, and other languages valuable in the war on terrorism. Instead,

<>DLI tolerated a situation that was an unconscionable waste of time and resources.” Squid recognizes that logic as the hard-hearted, cold-blooded variety associated with less-evolved species.

LITTLE RIGHT LIES…Squid pities them, really, the crazy, right wingers like William Greene. He’s not evil, just stupid. Greene, president of the online organization www.RightMarch.com, recently announced his plan to spread the “truth” about Iraq with a new music video for a song called “Bush was Right,” by a group called the Right Brothers.

“There’s a lot not being told about the successes in Iraq and we’re hoping to reach out to young people with a music video that tells the truth—that WMDs were found in Iraq and there was a definite link between Saddam and Al Qaeda—that Bush was, in fact, right.”

No matter that at this point in time, everyone—including the President—agrees that there were, in fact, no weapons of mass destruction.

But that isn’t what convinces Squid of Greene’s stupidity. It’s this statement: “RightMarch is planning to generate grassroots support for the song ‘Bush was Right’ with the ultimate goal of reaching out to MTV and requesting the music video be played on ‘Total Request Live’.”

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