Give the Gift of Greg Palast

Greg Palast would like you to leverage some of your holiday green to support his work. And, my fellow bloggers, we need him working. And while an autographed copy of “The Elections Files: The Theft of 2008," might not be a new plasma TV, it's not socks and underwear either.

On September 12, 2001, President Bush asked Americans to go shopping. And the Bush-bots did as told.

I’ve got a better idea: don’t shop - give a tax deductible donation to support my crew. Donate to the not-for-profit Palast Investigative Fund and I will sign and send, in gratitude, a gift to you - or your friends or family. I’ll sign each item - just tell us the names of the gifted ones by December 14.

Make your tax-deductible donations at www.PalastInvestigativeFund.org

BTW, since he's signing them, I don't imagine he'd object to including a personal message - if you sweeten the pot a little. So that might be an added bonus to a particularly appropriate (and perhaps even welcome) gift.

Oh, and for those gifts of obligation:

Make a donation to the Palast Investigative Fund in someone’s name - and we’ll send them a thank you card. You get a tax donation - and ‘just the facts, ma’am.’

Just the right gift for your Congresscritter or local newspaper editor, don't you think?

tag: Gifts, giving, Christmas, Greg Palast, Investigative Reporting

A Delightfully Racist Holiday

Yes, I did say "racist." I mean, I simply say out loud what O'Rielly and his ilk are thinking, on the days when they are smart enough to not actually say "Kwanzaa is racist." They are correct in the narrow sense, as it's intended to boost the spirits and pride of an entire race of people; it's a black holiday with decidedly black roots and celebrating it is to buy into a set of values intended to improve and empower black people. But I'm not saying it as if it's a bad thing.

Any time any group of people wants to get together and collectively improve themselves, to earn respect from others and (often much harder) improve their own self-respect, I'm all for people "gettin' above themselves." It's generally not all that hard, either, considering the sort of folks that set that bar.

I think everyone of every sort should look through these principles and consider if they, their communities and their race are actually doing anything positive to improve the lot of others of their own community, their race, their country and their family.

Celebrating Kwanzaa

Umoja (Unity)
To strive for and maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.
Kujichagulia (Self-Determination )
To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for
ourselves.
Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility)
To build and maintain our community together and make our brother's and
sister's problems our problems and to solve them together.
Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics)
To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to
profit from them together.
Nia (Purpose)
To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community
in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
Kuumba (Creativity)
To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our
community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
Imani (Faith)
To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

Why I am thankful for ana voog

i'm glad i got to see the earth when it was plentiful.
i'm both happy and sad that i got to experience living in america in the most gluttunous time in history.
when one could take a full bubble bath every 5 minutes if you wanted to, full of fresh clean water each time.

i have luxuriated in water, drank from the faucet when it was actually tasting ok to do so, i swam in pools of crystal clear springs in south dakota,
i washed my dishes and clothes in as much water as i wanted. hot or cold.
i have lived the life of a king on 5,000 a year.

Thank Goddess for friends who say the things we should have, better than we could have, if only we had rememberet that it's the time to do that.

I'd comment more, but everything I need to say, I've said there in the comments.

But make sure and linger a bit to learn more about ana voog.