Esquire Wins Award For Most Bizarre Park Slope Reference

You may or may not be able to imagine my surprise when I spied the following headline on Esquire.com's fashion blog: "Is the Pentagon About to Turn the Military into Park Slope?" I was intrigued. I thought to myself: I wonder if the Pentagon is organizing an organic food coop for our servicemen and women, or better yet, perhaps they're developing government-issue strollers for military families. I'd even take military servicewomen being allowed to openly breast feed on base.  I mean, whenever Park Slope thrust into any kind of broader national spotlight it's because of one of those stereotypical icons of our hood. 

Nope, I was wrong. Apparently the Pentagon is going to start letting soldiers wear things that are essential to their individual beliefs. As the post puts it, "You're about to see beards, yarmulkes, pink cell phones, and even... no, really, not making this up ... casual Fridays." Pink cell phones? That's a joke right? The line quickly follows: "Is the Pentagon about to turn the military into Park Slope?" 

So Park Slope=tolerance? Or maybe it's the beards? There are a lot of Jewish people in Park Slope. Maybe that's it? Ok. I'm going to stick with tolerance.  Still not a strong connection made yet. But I think after three years of writing for this blog I'll manage. I can't imagine how confused the readers in Illinois must be. 

The blog post went on to cite that NBC News has obtained a memo stating that the military was going to make uniform concessions for "individual expressions of sincerely held beliefs” which include "conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs of service members." 

Oh ok: So it is Park Slope=tolerance. Got it now. I'd like to think that there are many other examples of religiously-tolerant communities in this country to make comparisons to, but I guess we win. I'm still calling the whole thing a stretch. At least the post's official title, "Gaze in The Military: New, More Relaxed Uniform Requirements" isn't confusing or slightly derogatory (Seriously, let's get to work on a font for sarcasm).