Bring It On

What A Week

Shit has been flying and the blogosphere has been humming. Hard to keep track of whose saying what and who's doing who. So consider this a blog round up.

But before I start I would like to first point out the countdown clock in the upper righthand corner. It's there for a rason and no it is not the Impeach Bush countdown clock. It's better, well almost better, be here on Monday bright and early to ensure you get a good seat. Anyway here we go:

Blue Gal has a gay agenda and a queer eye for a straight ad.

The Bulldog wants to know who the fuck stole his Antrax and following the que of Marion Barry promises not to prosecute whoever has it if they just turn themselves in.

Ricky Zee remembers that he learned to dance from watching Elvis Costello videos.

Brother Kenya points out that a couple of Dems going down in flames does not make the Abramoff scandal a bi-partisan scandal. Matter of fact it's probably worth spending a couple of Dems to bring down the house, call it political capital, if you will.

Head on over to Vakil Polevoy's blog, he's got a history lesson on American Imperialism he'd like to share with you.

Michael Gregory Steele believes that a little government supervison is a good thing. Keeps a man honest.

Daffodil has a "respected deer-like animal" she would like you to meet.

::shocker:: Chandira believes she has found a real Christian using Mystical Alchemy. Quite ironic that a real Christian was made from using the precursor of modern science.

Whoooaaaaa, Gulf Wars Episode II Clone of the Attack is out on DVD!  WOOT!!!

And on that note I'm outta here. Have a great weekend everyone and I'll see you in the sandbox on Monday. And trust me, you do not want to miss Monday at Bring It On.

A Public Service Announcement

Thanks to our wonderful government, this past week all, I mean ALL, of our cell phone numbers have been released to the telemarketing industry. You can count on being called and you can count on being billed for them harrassing you.

To prevent this from happening call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222. It is the number for the National DO NOT CALL ME FUCKTARDS List. It will only take a minute of your time. It will block your number for 5 years (would love to know how they came up with that number).

Please pass this along and for more info you can go to the www.donotcall.gov website.

I've Been Tagged - Five Random Facts About the Bastard

OK, I made it through a whole year of blogging without getting one of these things I have seen on soooo many other blogs. I think they are cute but was never really interested in doing one myself because, I looooove talking about other people but I haaaate talking about myself. Anyway, I got tagged by Night Bird and out of respect for their wonderful blog I will give this my best shot.

Fact 1: I once drank shots with Sebastian Bach, the lead singer of Skid Row, what an ass he turned out to be. Anyway, to make a long story short I woke up the next morning in the trunk of my car with a $1 bill signed by the dickhead himself. Needless to say I spent that dollar on cigarettes and some hangover recovery medication.

Fact 2: I have three tattoos. The one on my left forearm is in memory of 9/11. The one on my right forearm is in memory of my mother (the best lady that ever lived). And the one on my right shoulder is from when I served in the Navy during the first Gulf War. That tattoo is now my wife's for some reason and all three came with a Harley Davidson.

Fact 3: I can trace my family's bloodline all the way back to Brian Boru, the first King of Ireland. But the only time I feel like royalty these days is when I'm sitting on the bowl. Side fact: My grandfather fought alongside Michael Collins during the Irish Civil War. He later fled to the United States where he and another lad named Tommy Grimes started a small newspaper called The Irish Echo. He was muscled out of the picture early on and that is something I've been meaning to contact Claire (Tommy's daughter) about because I believe we are owed some royalties. I recently made my first trip back to the motherland and I was a little upset when my citizens did not show the proper respect. I guess I'm asking far too much in sooo little time, unlike our first duly elected King of the United States.

Fact 4: I was a skinhead during my high school years. Now before you jump on me for being a racist, let me explain that I was a "good skinhead". You'll need to read the link to understand what I mean by that. The origins of the skinhead movement are not based on racism but more a deep pride in the working class roots of it's beginnings. I still have my flight jacket and boots tucked away somewhere. Both of them replaced with an understanding that no one will ever understand what a "good skinhead" is. Plus I learned I couldn't make a living at it unless I moved my ideology towards racism and that's something Prescott Bush can tell you about.

Fact 5: I love ketchup!!!! But I only voted for Kerry because I hate stupidity!!!!

So there you have it, five random facts about myself but for some reason I feel that I have told you more than five random facts about myself. So now I'm told that I need to pass this dare along to five other bloggers. Soooo, I think I would like to know a little more about the Bulldog, nicolemart, blogfart, World-O-Crap and here's to wishful thinking, Wonkette. Oh, and I think Steve needs to fess up.

I hope you all will enjoy talking about yourselves as much as I have. This was fun but I have a country to go claim as rightfully mine!

Wire Tap Fun

Via Skippy who got it from a friend.

Merry Christmas Everyone

"Not today Scooter.....

I have a headache!"

The Puppet Masters

Treats for Troops...

So, you‘ve given to YearlyKos, you donated to the Paul Hackett campaign, you supported ActBlue, hell some of you even gave to the DCCC I’m sure.

Well whats next? Why not buy some Pringles for the troops? What do you say to that, eh?

Check out Treats for Troops, and do a little something to thank the soldiers this Thanksgiving...

...

Come on now, we all now that us Liberal types are just bloated millionaires with nothing more to spend our hard earned inheritance money on than further slanting the media in a leftward direction…

Ok, ok, so your sitting at home getting ready to gored yourself with turkey, stuffing and gravy and planning your ”Black Friday” attack on your local mega-mart, think about the men and women in uniform who are miles and miles away from their families and homes.

Instead of dropping 20 bucks on 10 pairs of white knee length socks; how about spending some money on the troops who are sitting some 3000 miles away in the desert? Who knows, the way things are going, you may be buying them a snack for the plane ride home!

Treats for Troops is an organization that provides gifts, snacks, games and a plethora of other goodies for soldiers that are serving overseas. You can get your favorite soldier some Pringles, a phone card to call home with, or even a magnetic solitaire game.

How it works is that a soldier registers with the site and list their preferences (what kind of stuff they’d love to receive), their branch of service, where they are from etc, etc…

You can go to this page (thought I’d help ya out with the navigation) and select a “foster soldier” from a variety of choices; home state, military branch or home state, or hell, just select “random”( If you want you can send some goodies to my best friend who happens to be in Iraq right now, his Treats for Troops number is 1873593, and his last name is Moore; you’ll need to know that).  He promised to spread the love to the rest of his unit. After all you can only store so many cans of Pringles in an 8x5 sardine can.

If you have ever suffered through an MRE (Meal, Ready-to-Eat), or let alone had to eat MREs for more than 2 consecutive weeks (been there, done that), you realize how important it is to have some ”Pogey Bait”.

So, while your kicking back with your family and loved ones in the coming days watching football, gettin’ fat, think about all the men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the time of the year that it sucks to be deployed, there is nothing worse than being in a country full of people who don’t particularly like you than during the holidays.

Come on and fork over a few bucks if you can, buy some nuts or a deck of cards for a soldier, I can tell you for one, that there is nothing better than getting a package from back home when you are sooo far away from home, talk about making someone smile.

Let 'em know you came from  Bring it On!, and let 'em know who really supports the troops. 'Cause it sure as hell ain't no one at FreeRepublic!

Contributing Authors

You may or may not know, Bring It On is comprised of a number of very talented writers. They all volunteer their time and efforts on many different levels to bring you fresh and progressive ideas on a daily basis. If you have liked what you have read here than take a second to stroll on over to their blogs and say hi. They all have a ton of interesting material to wade through. What you see here is just the tip of the giant progressive iceberg.

A Purpose Driven Illusion

I would feel remiss if I gave you anybody or anything ordinary.  The Fool is anything but.  He's an actor/writer and a Democratic party operative.  Yes they still exist; or so The Fool claims.  Recently he wrote about visiting friends for Halloween.  I wanted to be there.  Good writers/bloggers transport me into their worlds, and The Fool never misses. 

He's also a damn good political writer, and I asked him if he would be interested in writing for Bring it on! some time ago, but he had an excuse about working for Hackett.  Okay, that comes first.

I like people who look at things from different angles, and think that The Fool presents much to think about in his discussion on Ashley Smith.  I love the story, the writing, and the fresh approach, but let me not prejudice you.

written by: The Fool

I wanted to re-visit the Ashley Smith story for a moment. Perhaps weneed to reacquaint ourselves with Ms. Smith for old time's sake. For clarity read Mark Follman's excellent essay on the topic at hand here... I don't want to offer a polarizing screed about the evils of right wing politics butrather examine what the Ashley Smith story tells us about ourselves asa society.

Ashley Smith got caught playing the God card. She played that cardjust well enough to get a book deal which elevates her situationsubstanially. Ashley Smith was/is a poor single mother who lives on the edge of poverty. I applaud her efforts to get herself out of a very dire life threatening situation with a very dangerous man. But that's where Ms. Smith crosses the line from heroism into outright dishonesty. She conveniently forgot to mention to police or the media that she gave crystal meth to her captor which eradicates any spiritual component that she may have exploited. What is interesting in all this is how her mentors in the media abandoned her when therest of her story found the light of day. The same people who sang her praises now won't return phone calls and just generally want the whole thing to go away. Peggy Noonan and Fox News never wouldn't have touched the story if they'd known about the crystal meth. Oops.

But for me, the operant paragraph was this quote...

"I think God gave this young lady a super natural empathy and compassion for someone that most anybody else would have tried to kill," the Rev. H.B. London, a vice president for ministry at Focus on the Family, said back on March 16. "Every Christian organization in the country will want to tell her story."

Gadzooks. Can you hear the string section yet? A chorus of angels triumphantly harmonizing while cherubim pluck harps gilt with gold? Can we all stick a finger down our throats for just a moment to bring us back to reality?

Can we begin to have a discussion about why these kinds of stories have such a mythic quality and why they have such a hypnotic effect on us as a culture? There seems to be an insatiable hunger for heroes in our society that is almost pathological. Ashley Smith isn't the only one. During the Iraq War we were treated to the story of Jessica Lynch, whose heroic exploits were dished up to us courtesy of the Bush administration and Fox News. She was portrayed as a female Rambo, who even when injured kept firing her automatic weapon in a futile attempt to save her fellow soldiers and to evade capture. We all found out later that this story was fabricated propaganda. After her vehicle turned over she was so severely injured that she could hardly move much less fire her weapon. Then there is Pat Tillman, the former professional football player turned soldier who died engaging Al Queda operatives in a fire fight in Afghanistan. It was found out later that he died in a friendly fire accident, infuriating his family who felt used and betrayed by their own government who used Pat Tillman's death as propaganda to shore up flagging support for the war.

All of these stories were designed to feed the American public's hunger for heroes. People whose constitution is so clear, untainted and pure that they can do no wrong. Our government uses this need to create a kind of American super hero when the need presents itself. I tend to get pretty annoyed when I feel that I'm being manipulated by my own government and these stories do nothing to alleviate my suspicion of said government.

Where does this pathological need come from? Are we still like children who need Santa Claus to complete our lives and tell us that our lives are worth living? Is God just Santa Claus for adults? Are we to be spoon fed fairy tales and heroes of mythic proportion just tokeep us happy and content? Will the world come to an end if we beg into realize that there are no heroes, that we're all just flawed human beings just trying to muddle through this thing we call life? Ultimately I think this is all part of The Culture Wars. The medieval forces of fundamentalism attempt to sell us a bill of goods complete with gods, heroes and morality. Arrayed on the other side are the forces of modernism who postulate that heroes are merely flawed and ordinary people put into extraordinary circumstances. We feel betrayed and let down when our hero is found to be a drug addict, or cheated on college exams or was a womanizer. Ashley Smith is no angel but neither is she a villain. She saved her life as best she could and she then played the system. And that's how people really are and why we want them to be perfect is quite beyond me.

Is this Time Of Illusion going to be over anytime soon? Wouldn't it be easier for us to accept the universe as we find it, not as we wish it to be? America is like a gangly teenager on the edge of maturity, one foot in it's medieval past and the other in the future, unsure about whether to stride unafraid into a universe of paradox and uncertainty. They say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Onward.