I'm wearing pants today: semi rant

[Alan H]

I want to make it clear that what I'm talking about there is people who wear kilts but espouse attitudes like:

1.) People who don't wear kilts are all sheep.

2.) All pants are boring and have no character, unlike all kilts which are so magnificent in every possible way.

We have a whole thread on awful kilts. It's had thousands of viewings and contains over a hundred pictures of horrible kilts. In nearly every instance, if the person had opted to wear a reasonable pair of pants, they'd look better. Ya know, if wearing a kilt (sometimes, rarely, or all the time) has opened your eyes to the wisdom of not judging someone on just one or two things... like what piece of clothing they are wearing below the waist....then that's a great thing.

Look, my Dad never wore a kilt a single day in his life and had no interest in doing so. Does that mean my dad was a mindless, spineless, boring sheep who couldn't think for himself, dressed in filthy rags, and was ashamed of his roots? 'scuse me? This is the man who skippered the LST that ran 300 marines up on the beach at Tarawa. This is the man who skippered an air-sea rescue boat an Eniewetok in 1945. This is the man who suffered through the cancer that took his life without complaining ONCE. This is the man who treated everyone around him with respect and decency and honesty and tell me how his wearing pants turned him into a "sheep".

I work with Paul Berg, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 1980. Paul is hardly what I'd call "sheep". At nearly 80 years old he's smart as a tack, stays up on current research, asks mighty insightful questions when he attends talks, and is a force behind faculty responsibility at this University. And you know what? Paul Berg has never worn a kilt a single day in his life. He wears Pants. And you know what else? He looked at me funny once, the first day, asked a polite question and now he doesn't give a rip whether I wear a kilt or not. All he cares about is that we keep the computers running around here so that the researchers can get on with their work. Paul Berg = "sheep"? I don't *think* so.

Ninety-nine percent of USA, Canadian and UK Men will never wear a kilt for even 60 seconds in their lifetimes. Does that mean that all those men are stupid sheep who should be judged on the basis of the horrible, constrictive, manhood-obliterating PANTS that they wear?

Judge people on their actions, in particular how they treat the world around them and the people around them, not by what they wrap around their rumpus. And wear your kilt when you feel like it, for whatever good reasons you have on that day. If that's every day, then great. If that's for formal occasions only, then bully for you. If you pick your Clan tartan, super! If you want to strap on a Utilikilt, then go for it. And if you happen to strap on a pair of Dockers khaki trousers and save your kilt for tomorrow, then I'm sure not gonna look at you crosswise for doing it.