Archive for December, 2010
Merry Christmas to all HillBuzz readers
Dear Readers,
Merry Christmas to everyone who comes here on a regular basis, and to those of you who might have stumbled here for the first time.
I hope wherever you are, that you are warm, have lots of good things to eat, and are with people you love today on this very special day.
Next Christmas, I hope a great many of you can be camped out on the ground in Iowa, where maybe we can spend Christmas together — eating dinner at some random Chinese buffet or maybe scrounging up a little potluck in a motel.
2011 is going to be a rough and tumble, exciting, make-or-break year for this country. You’re going to be needed in the fight to take back America from the Left, and while I don’t want to mix politics into Christmas today, I do want you to stand firm in your beliefs and not let Leftist bullies at your Christmas gatherings have the last say on anything.
Next year, and into 2012, you are going to be called on to surrogate speak, debate, canvass, phone bank, and promote the conservative cause in all sorts of ways…and Christmas 2010 is a great kickoff for you.
If you can school your Leftist cousin Dwight or your Ivory Tower urban elitist sister-in-law Terri over some turkey or ham when they start up on how much they hate Governor Palin (and you can, instead, cast the light of scrutiny upon Obama and Joe Biden, the other turkey and ham in our lives right now), you are taking the first steps towards being a valuable campaign operative in 2012…who is most certainly needed at this juncture in American history.
It’s a long road to 2012, but we’re getting our feet onto that path right now, and during Christmas conversations today you might just get an inkling of what unexpected allies you’ll have going forward amongst the people you see maybe once or twice a year at occasions like this.
Politics, however, is not everything in life, so from all of us here at Buzzquarters and our extended makeshift family here in Boystown, I really want to thank all of you for the love, support, encouragement, advise, tips, and other help you’ve given in 2010. It’s a strange feeling broadcasting here in the dark, not knowing who’s reading this, or who we’re reaching at HB…but it’s been wonderful the last few days to receive so many heartfelt and kind e-cards and messages from all across the country and the globe.
I’m excited to be so close to launching the new and improved HB, version 3.0, in early 2011…which will be better suited to what’s needed for the 2012 campaign, and a much better resource to battle the Left on all fronts for many, many years to come. I’m grateful to all of you who have invited us into your lives, especially those of you who chime in with thread comments or who write us from time to time to tell us what’s going on in your part of the country. The only way the Left and media will ever divorce, and the media itself will collapse, is if enough citizen-journalists out there take the initiative to tell the stories the media won’t tell and fight the fights the GOP Cocktail Party establishment is too timid to fight.
I am always encouraged by the verve and passion I see from so many of you…and if I get one Christmas wish this year it’s for all of us, together, to find a way to channel all this energy, positivity, and love of country into real and sustained action to change the status quo and bring down the Left once and for all…so that your children and grandchildren don’t have to go through any of this again 20 or 30 years from now.
None of us asked for this fight, but it’s here on our doorstep. But, Santa’s on the rooftop with one boot in the chimney tonight, so that’s where my mind wants to be right now, too, thinking Christmas thoughts and being far removed from politics for the day…but, yet, the reality is still there…along with the deep and resonating sense that America will, ultimately, be okay.
No matter what Obama does in the remainder of his term. No matter what the Left tries to ram through. No matter what the Cocktail Party GOP establishment lets Democrats get away with.
We are going to win this.
God and light are on our side.
We just need to muster the might, together, to keep standing up to these Alinsky thugs and bullies…and I don’t doubt for a second we’ll be able to do that.
So, from here in Boystown I thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything you have done for your country so far and all that you will do in the years ahead. I thank you for standing up and being brave when America needs you. I thank you for sending prayers and love our way here in Boystown and for making room in your hearts and families for a bunch of gay guys and their friends that you might never meet. We’re all on a quest together none of us asked for or wanted, but can never regift, and I just have to say today that I can’t think of better people I’d ever want to be on an adventure with.
Much love and God Bless today and always,
KD
Class vs. Crass: Nancy Reagan vs. Michelle Obama at Christmas
Click above to embiggen
Both of these things really did happen.
As bizarre as each of them were in their own way.
Merry Christmas!
More holiday-themed Class vs. Crass here.
Merry Christmas (not “Happy Holidays”) Open Thread: December 25th, 2010
My favorite Christmas picture, ever, taken in 2008 in the leadup to the Iowa Caucus.
What are you doing for Christmas today?
Wherever you go, and whatever you do, I hope you wish everyone you encounter a Merry Christmas. It’s never “Happy Holidays”. If someone has a problem hearing “Merry Christmas”, then that’s not the only problem they have, and that person should just not leave the house.
Before you head out to do whatever it is you have planned, please try to reach out to anyone you think will be alone today…an elderly person on your street, a single person in your building, a relative that you don’t really like all that much 364 days a year.
But, today is Christmas.
Christmas means something…and it’s not those presents under the trees…it’s what’s in that heart of yours…where there’s just as much room in it for a few extra people as there is at Christmas dinner for a few more guests.
PLEASE remember anyone in your lives who has lost a loved one in the last few months, because this is the first Christmas that person is experiencing without that person. This is especially true for people who lost a parent, spouse, or child. They might seem okay at work, and they might sound fine on the phone, but can you please take a few minutes this morning, while your husband or wife or whomever is getting dressed and you are just sitting there waiting, and send out some texts, emails, or make a quick call to check up on these people who are grieving at Christmas?
Often, what happens is that everyone sends the sympathy cards around the time of the funeral…and they might send a bunch of Facebook hugs and whatever…but months later people forget about that loss, but the grieving person clearly didn’t. Today, people in your life might need a little extra love and some Christmas cheer.
You might be the only person in their lives that’s this considerate and caring today…and one simple text, email, or phone could be the honest to goodness best gift they could have ever received today.
We are all in this life together, and we need to look out for each other like this. Someday, you will need kindness like this too…and when that day comes, I hope someone reading a little post like this gives you a call and is a friend on Christmas when you need it.
When God sent his son to Earth, he clearly had a choice. He could have sent a conqueror. He could have dispatched a tyrant and dictator from Heaven and installed him as overlord of all. He could have been cruel and vicious and overpowering. But, that is not God.
He sent us Jesus today, as a gift to the world, so that the kindness and love that Jesus showed during his 33 years of life would be continuously re-gifted for all time.
THAT is what you should be taking to friends’ and relatives’ homes today. The things in boxes wrapped in shiny paper are extraneous. The real gift is the love inside you, and the cheer you are bringing today on Jesus’ birthday.
I promise everything else I write for you today will be fun, cheery, and festive…but there really are people who need your love and friendship today, so I cannot miss this opportunity to ask you to think of them…and to encourage everyone to say MERRY CHRISTMAS! as loudly as you can all day long, wherever you go, because none of us should ever allow this marvelous holiday to be taken away by the Left, no matter how hard those grinches try year after year.
Class vs. Crass: Where did the Bush Family spend Christmas?
Click to embiggen. On left, the entire Bush Family on Christmas Day at Camp David (Laura Bush in orange in the center, with George W. and the elder Bushes together at the heart of the family)
George H. W. and Barbara Bush spent Christmas in 1989, 1990, 1991, and 1992 at Camp David — all four years of Bush-41′s presidency.
George W. and Laura Bush spent Christmas in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 at Camp David — all eight years of Bush-43′s presidency.
Barack and Michelle Antoinette Obama spend Christmas in Hawaii, tearing White House staff, Secret Service agents, and reporters away from their Washington-based families so the Obamas can enjoy a tropical vacation at immense taxpayer expense. In the middle of a depression.
Hope!
Change!
Priorities!
More holiday-themed Class vs. Crass here.
The dog deceased murderer Ted Kennedy sickly named “Splash” has died…not sure what to say about this
Ted Kennedy naming this dog "Splash" was like OJ Simpson buying a dog just so he could name it "Double Murder"...and then walk it in front of the Goldman and Brown families' homes, so he could encourage the dog to defecate all over their yards...and then laugh about it.
Ted Kennedy murdered Mary Jo Kopechne in 1969, just as sure as if he’d pulled a gun on her or hit her over the head with a candlestick, in the library, while Colonel Mustard and Miss Peacock watched in jaw-dropped horror.
He drove the bright and promising young woman off a bridge and into a tidal basin, then squirmed his way out of the car while she was trapped inside to drown. Instead of freeing her, Kennedy swam away, heading back to party and drink some more, while Kopechne gasped for air for more than two hours, during which time Kennedy never bothered to report the “accident”…until he was damn sure she had to be dead.
No story, not even one on Christmas Eve, about Ted Kennedy should start off without a recounting of this murder.
Today, we learn that Ted Kennedy’s Portuguese water dog — the same kind the Kennedys gave to Obama, so he could name it after himself, and the Kennedys could pretend they were still relevant — has died.
It was a dog Ted Kennedy named “Splash”.
William Kennedy Smith lives not too far away from me here in Chicago. I see him sometimes running on the lakefront path. I think he has a dog, or occasionally borrows a friend’s dog. I wonder if that dog’s name is “Rape”.
Did OJ Simpson have a dog named “Double Murder”?
Or, is that too on the wet, slimy, doggie nose?
If you are a living, breathing, coherent person who has paid any attention at all to the Kennedy family and you can honestly argue naming that dog “Splash” is not one of the sickest things you have ever heard, I would love to hear from you in comments below.
It’s just unfathomable to me.
If you are a Kennedy defender — and there are still plenty out there in Democrat ranks — and you honestly believe what Ted Kennedy did to Mary Jo Kopechne (he murdered her!) was “an accident”, as the Kennedy family insists to this day, then I’d love to hear your rationalization behind the insensitivity of naming that dog “Splash”…considering the mighty splash Ted Kennedy’s Oldsmobile made when it plunged someone’s daughter into the icy water that drowned her.
I just don’t understand this.
It is beyond sick.
Yet, unsurprising considering what family we are talking about.
Curse not the poor dog for its sinful name; forget not the sins of the dead dog’s master.
****************************
PS: If you read the article linked above, you’ll find a line that is snort-worthy if, like me, you read it early in the morning without much sleep last night. I swear, I thought the author wrote:
Splash was an author — he co-wrote a children’s book — and a bipartisan beast as well, receiving treats from former President George W. Bush’s furry buddy Barney.
Splash leaves behind siblings Shitty and Crappy.
Which is not what the article really says, but they sure are fitting names for HUMAN Kennedy males, let alone their dogs.
Ever wonder what it feels like to find yourself living in a musical. A Christmas musical?
Monday nights here in Boystown mean Showtunes night at Sidetrack, where, depending on the VJ spinning up in the booth, sometimes they play clips from “Once More With Feeling”, which was the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (then there are the nights when co-owner Chuck Hyde’s in the control booth, when he insists on playing obscure, vaudevillian, depressing songs no one under 60 enjoys whatsoever).
If you’ve been to Showtunes night, you’ve appreciated the absurdity of most musical theater…where spontaneously, in the middle of a normal conversation, people burst into song when deep feelings and passions need to be expressed, and regular words just won’t do. Random strangers assist the main players with musical backup and dance accompaniment…all of which was skewered by Buffy and her Scoobies in the “Once More With Feeling” episode, where the gang battled a demon that forced people to sing and dance in the “real world”.
For the last few years now, “flash mobs” have taken this Broadway-stlyled, musical randomness into food courts and train stations worldwide. A recent episode of Modern Family featured the phenom (now kind of a cliche, on the verge of peaking and becoming annoying), where the character Marshal practiced for weeks with a flash mob group to perform an 80s song in a mall, with everyone seeming to join the performance at random, like they were caught up in a Broadway musical.
I’ve yet to see one in person, even here in Chicago, and you’d think things like this would happen in Boystown every night of the week, but they don’t.
This Christmas “flash mob” rendition of “Hallelujah” from Handel’s Messiah is gorgeous, though…something I wish I could have been eating Panda Express and gotten the full floor show experience for.
One quiet, Christmas moment in Boystown…
Since I cover politics, and spend most days writing about things like Voter Fraud, the Pigford Scam, or terrible things the Left is doing, it’s almost alien for me to write about anything sweet, quiet, and smile-inducing. Even if I try to make whatever awful thing Democrats are doing that day more palatable by ridiculing it and using satire to help get readers through the day, as much as possible, covering politics means not writing about too many feel-good things. Being a vocal critic of the Left means I also, unfortunately, don’t get to have many feel-good moments in my own life, because of the massive retribution I get from the Left for speaking out against them (though, other conservative writers repeatedly tell me I am not doing my job if I don’t have at least a half dozen hate sites dedicated obsessively to me).
Two months ago I started dating a really great guy named Justin, just after Halloween.
I love the guy, and think it’s going to turn into something.
He’s my “unicorn”…the mythical, gay, conservative Republican in Boystown who not only knows who I am and is fine with my politics and profile, but actually cheers me on to hit the Left harder and take everything up to a whole new level in 2011. Justin’s a big fan of Governor Palin’s, too, and has been going to Tea Party events since the beginning. He actually heard me speak at the first Tax Day Tea Party here in Chicago, without knowing who I was at the time, and his mom’s been reading my essays for over a year, also never thinking she or her son would ever meet me.
I’ve been brutalized by the Left for being a gay conservative, especially since I’m a former Democrat who left the party in 2008 when the party I knew deliberately veered irreparably to the Left, booting conservatives like me out for good. Gay Leftists, in particular, focus their ire on me because they don’t want other gays to step off the reservation as well, and start questioning the value of blindly voting Democrat over and over again. So, for that, I must be destroyed in the Left’s mind, and they’ve set about on an Alinsky Methods campaign to alienate me from my community here in Boystown, and larger gay circles nationwide.
I never expected to meet a guy like Justin…someone who clearly sees what the Left is doing, is personally aware of the Left’s bullying of me for being a gay conservative, and is totally unafraid of being with me considering all of this. He loves that I stand up to these bullies, and I love him for that support.
A few days ago, I woke up before Justin and wrestled with whether or not to ask him what he was going to do for Christmas, not knowing whether or not we’d been dating long enough to spend a major holiday together. Male relationships are strange in this regard. The joke with lesbians is that they meet, have a date, and then move in together…so of course they’d spend the holidays together. Straight couples seem to do this as well, if they aren’t going to family events where a boyfriend or girlfriend would be grilled in the “When are you going to get married?” department.
But, with two guys together, it’s awkward and strange when it comes to holidays. Most guys don’t want to be in a relationship, and are just tomcats at heart…so they often deliberately sabotage something before it becomes too serious and holidays bring unwanted expectations to the surface. It’s easier for a guy to break up with someone and move on to the next boy than for him to admit he really likes the guy he’s seeing and confront the possibility that they could share a holiday together…because that would mean something…and meaning something gets more complicated than meeting someone new at Roscoe’s and never bothering to catch his last name.
So, running out of time before Christmas, I wondered if I should ask what Justin was up to that day, since I knew his family’s all in Arkansas, where his mom and dad have a small veterinary practice and his sister teaches kindergarten. His parents love him, but don’t accept that he’s gay, and every time he comes home for anything, they “surprise him” with some friend of theirs who has a daughter who magically shows up unannounced at dinner time to join them…and meet Justin. I didn’t know if he’d be going back to Eureka Springs to spend Christmas with them, or if he’d end up at an “orphans’ Christmas” here in Boystown, with some of his coworkers and their friends, like he did at Thanksgiving.
“Orphans’ Christmas” is what a lot of gay guys here in Chicago do, when either their families don’t want them home for the holidays because they are gay, or when they can’t make it home for Thanksgiving or Christmas, for whatever reason.
After Justin woke up and I gave him enough time to transition out of dream time and into reality, I asked him where he was going to be on Christmas Day and he looked at me, sleepy-eyed, the covers still pulled up almost over his head, and said, “I’m going to be wherever you are, doing whatever crazy thing you are up to that day, most likely hearing about voter fraud from you, or probably Pigford some more”.
He pulled in closer, held me tighter, and added, “And I’m going to make sure you have fun on Christmas, and don’t spend the whole day trying to save the world or washing pots on the Southside, like you did on Thanksgiving, or driving around town up to your usual antics. You’re going to have a real Christmas too, for at least part of the day. And then you can talk about voter fraud all you want on the radio somewhere on Sunday”.
So, Justin’s going to come with me to make a half dozen stops Christmas morning to deliver presents and foods to the homebound AIDS-afflicted with me, through a ministry I volunteer with, and then we’re going to have our own little Christmas back at Buzzquarters where I’m going to put on a Christmas movie I like, and he’s going to put on one of his favorites, and we’ll have dinner and drink a nice bottle of wine and end up listening to music in my room, with the computer screen tuned out of HillBuzz and voter fraud and Pigford…and instead glowing with an electronic yule log, like it should be Christmas Day.
Just me and my unicorn.
I’m his unicorn, too, by the way. He even used the same word I do…because he didn’t think he’d meet another conservative guy in Boystown, after having dated an unbroken string of Lefties and blind-voting Democrats, who didn’t know why they were even “Democrats” except that Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow told them they had to be. His coworkers told him not to talk to me because I was “that conservative writer” and “evil celebrity”, or “that guy from TV we hate”, which ironically enough made Justin more, not less, interested in meeting me.
“It’s going to be hard for my mom and dad to hate you when they meet you,” Justin said later in the morning, after we’d been talking about Christmas. ”They’ll want to hate you, because you’re gay and we’re together, but it’s going to be hard because my mom reads you and my dad agrees with everything you say, except the liking guys stuff. It’s going to be funny. I can’t wait to see the smoke come out of their ears as they try to figure you out. My sister will probably just make noises. She won’t know what to say. She does that sometimes”.
That, right there, was an early Christmas present for me, too…because rarer than a unicorn is a gay man who wants his boyfriend to meet his parents…especially when he’s never brought anyone down to Eureka Springs to meet his parents before.
That’s definitely not happening this year…and next Christmas I’ll be in Iowa campaigning for Governor Palin in advance of the 2012 primary…but Christmas in Arkansas might just be in the cards for me come 2012.
It really is a wonderful life, full of all sorts of oddball twists and turns.
Whatever you are doing today and tomorrow, I hope you have something quietly magical in your own lives on par with what I’ve found in Justin.
I hope you all have love in your hearts, and all around you, this Christmas…and if you do, I surely hope you know and appreciate it.
Knowing you are blessed, and thanking God for every minute of it, celebrating and savoring it, is rarer than any Christmas unicorn.
PROACTIVE ACTION ITEM: What can you say to Leftist family members at Christmas when they start attacking Governor Palin tomorrow?
I’d love people to chime in if they spent Thanksgiving with any Lefty relatives who regurgitate the media’s talking points against Governor Palin…so we can hear how you countered this garbage and refudiated the attacks on Governor Palin.
What can you tell your relatives and friends at Christmas dinner tomorrow about Governor Palin, should politics come up?
What can you tell them about Sarah Palin’s Alaska?
What can you tell them about the Governor’s excellent new book, America By Heart?
What can you tell them about her last book, Going Rogue?
What can you tell them about the Palins’ combined family contributions to the state of Alaska?
What can you tell them about what you expect for a Palin presidency?
If you have at least three great things to say about Governor Palin that anticipate the attacks the Leftists will make on her, you will be sitting pretty at Christmas dinner when these attacks inevitably come.
Leftists are rather predictable.
They only say about 3-5 things about Governor Palin, which they all learn from Chis Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Anderson Cooper, Katie Couric, or Tina Fey, 60.
If you can hold your own against this garbage tomorrow in a familial setting, you will get an early start on the 2011 campaigning…when you’ll have to do this exact same thing on the ground for the Governor wherever you live…or across the nation should you spend next Christmas in Iowa somewhere, where I expect many of us will be, prepping for the Iowa primary.
Never too early to plan ahead.
Al Gore and unknown homeless woman mistakenly minted on British commemorative coins
Click above to embiggen
Al Gore and an unknown, disheveled homeless woman (who might actually be Ashley Judd) were mistakenly minted on commemorative coins meant to celebrate the engagement of Prince William to Kate Middleton in Great Britain.
It’s unclear how this mistake was made, but the Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Change could possibly be involved, as the carbon-trade market they designed as a massive global scam to fund their insanity has collapsed…so now it’s time to get into the commemorative coin racket.
Which is, admittedly, highly lucrative.
And, more plausible than an artist really and truly believing he created an authentic, realistic-looking likeness of either Prince William or Kate Middleton for these gold coins.
***********************************
UPDATE: It bothered me all day, until it suddenly occurred to me. That’s actually NOT Ashely Judd in that coinage with Al Gore…it’s a young Ozzie Osbourne, which makes this all the more bizarre.
Was a time-traveling Al Gore ever engaged to a young Ozzie Osbourne, and if so why would the British celebrate that?
Is this the model used for the Royal Mint's engagement coin...a young Ozzie Osbourne?
Think about giving the gift of time, and yourself, this Christmas
Here’s something I would like you all to consider on this Christmas Eve, as you put the finishing touches on your plans for the holidays tonight and tomorrow.
As you write out the gift cards that will go on all the fancy things you have lovingly wrapped, think about adding one extra line or two to give a very personal, special gift to someone you love.
Think about saying something like, “And in this New Year, I pledge to volunteer for one hour in your name at [Fill in the Blank] because I love you and that love inspires me to share Christmas with those less fortunate, and this is my way of doing that”.
Write it however you like. Pick whatever charitable cause you want.
Heck, do an hour of phone banking for Governor Palin or canvassing for a candidate of your choice if you want to. Help an elderly neighbor by doing grocery shopping for him or her and maybe clean their house for them. Volunteer as a reading tutor or Big Brother/Big Sister. Walk a sick friend’s dog. Do whatever’s comfortable for you.
But, take this opportunity to see to it that the spirit of Christmas is not over and done with once all the wrapping paper has been stuffed into trash bags and people are lining up for leftovers before the big game or movie of the week starts up on the TV.
Honestly, the best and most memorable gifts I ever received at Christmas were all home-made and from the heart.
The one I absolutely always looked forward to, every year, was a little card I’d get from one of my grandmother’s friends named Agnes, who was on social security and had no money, and no grandchildren, but who always thought about me and sent me Christmas wishes…along with a marvelous gift…in the form of a promise written in shaky, elderly writing that said in the springtime she’d dedicate an hour of gardening at the church to me, so that she could give the neighborhood the gift of beautiful flowers that I could share in.
As a kid, I thought it was a little strange, but I really appreciated being thought of…and in the dead of winter I liked the idea that this little old lady planned to create something beautiful in the spring, thinking of me then too. She gave the gift of time, and herself, and I have never forgotten it.
Every one of my friends gets a card like this from me at Christmas, where I keep Agnes’ tradition alive and promise each of them I will do certain volunteering in their name…picking something that person likes or would appreciate. In 2011, when I keep these promises, I’ll send a quick email to the applicable friend letting her or him know I thought of that person that day, and making sure she or he knows how important she or he is to me.
This is something that won’t cost you a dime, but has enriched my life immensely, and is a tradition that’s caught on with many of my own friends…who give me this gift each year in their Christmas cards to me.
I like the idea that something sweet and so very kind that a little old lady named Agnes, long gone now, used to do back in Cleveland decades ago lives on through my friends and me…and maybe someone else out there who’s reading this.
When I ask you to make volunteering a part of your lives, it’s not only about giving something to others…but it’s about giving you the chance to have adventures, new experiences, and great times you never would have imagined…because I’ve yet to hear back from anyone who didn’t enjoy spending an hour or two here or there helping people they might not have ever come in contact with otherwise.
Christmas is not about whatever’s in those boxes wrapped so prettily under the tree…but about what’s in your heart.
There’s still a chance to go beyond the store bought and give the people in your lives a Christmas present they will never forget…a promise of the gift of your time, and of yourself.
So, I hope you consider this today and tomorrow.
