Aug. 31, 2010 at 2:36pm with 5 notes
2:34pm with 3 notes
Reblogged from bunnyvictorious
Bunny Victorious!: Want to be part of something amazing?

In these here parts, we’re a flutter with a birthday present of greatness. Of surprise, of intrigue, of compilation, of photos and words and wisdom and fortune cookie fortunes for scrapbooking, of STEALTH.  (The Marine is currently on a 3-week FEX out in 29 Palms so there’s no risk of him seeing this.  So, yes, still stealth.)  

For those of you who are unawares, I’m hook, line, and sinker sold to an officer in the United States Marine Corps.  It’s the kind of story that would make you sick, and my friends hate hearing about what I love about him, how he says the word “important” in such a way that I’ll never want to hear it anyway else, how he pretends to be all big and tough (and is) but how he’s just a sweetheart of a guy underneath, how holding hands in the car is my absolute favorite thing while we argue over which Johnny Cash song is best (I vote for Sea of Heartbreak, he votes incorrectly for his NIN remake) besides lying down to watch airplanes take off at National, how much I hate that he’s not around all the time, but how he’ll call just to make it feel like he’s there anyway, and will remember all the little things like “and I have this thing at noon I’m so nervous about with me luck” and he’ll still find a way to text me just before to make sure I know it’s not about luck, luck’s not needed, and how just now, even though he wasn’t supposed to be able to call me for another month, he just called to say hi.  

He is, flat-out, the single best person I’ve ever met.  

I’ll spare you the details, but know this: He’s a Columbia alum, smart as a whip, and the 30 enlisted Marines he’s about to take under wing are lucky that they’ve got the brightest, most dedicated, most strategic man I know at the helm.

And it’s about to be his birthday.  And what do you do for the best man you know on his birthday?

The best thing you can think of, obviously.

And you know what else is happening around his birthday?  He’s checking into Le Sigh, North Carolina, where he’ll get his own Marines.  30 boys he’s going to lead into battle and bring home safely.  And needless to say, this is a lot of pressure.

So we’ve wrangled together all his friends.  His family.  His neighbors.  There may even be a teacher or two in there.  And they’re all doing an 8.5x11” page that we’re pasting into a scrapbook for him with the broader message: hey you, you’re awesome.  What goes on these pages? Anything you want.  A few nice words to say “hey, it’ll all be okay.”  A picture of a birthday cake.  An hoorah.  Anything.  It’s just a moment for us to say, “Hey kid.  I know the world looks really scary right now.  And you’re pretty far from home doing this thing. But we’re all out here… rooting for you.”  And from me, p.s. I love you.  And probably in sparkly princess pink, because that’s the kind of girl I am.

He looks all tough in his dress blues, but don’t be fooled.  He’s a total softy.  I mean, look.  

Do you have any advice for this guy?  Words of wisdom?  A happy message that has nothing to do with the Marine Corps?  Words for birthdays? Because if so, you can send it to me [raleighelizabeth dot smith at gmail] and I’ll print it out and put it in.  

I figure, you know, of all the people out there fighting, that’s less than one percent of our American population.  You might not know anyone who’s doing it, but I do.  And he’s the best of the best.  He could have been a fancy New York architect (and he may yet be), but for the moment, this is his job.  And he’s doing the best he can.  And he deserves the best from us, too.

Do you have anything USMC-related? Snap your picture with it and send it my way too, along with your zipcode, so we can lat/long it for the album cover.  I’m sendingout USMC stuff to everyone participating so they can snap the photo and send it back.  Matthew will obviously be captured in a USMC t-shirt climbing on construction equipment.  A picture that, while not lethal like a Marine, will definitely kill us all with cuteness.

If you want to help, we’d love it.
11:36am with 647 notes
Reblogged from rosieloveswords
Did you know that 50 million light years away from Earth, there’s a star made completely of diamonds?

rosieloveswords:

quickwitter:

10 billion trillion trillion carats.

girlvanized: cuntofdoom: adailyriot: brainguts: vestacha:prominte///bohemianlikeyou

And no, I did not make up that number.  I just googled the star.This is fucking awesome. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3492919.stm

I’ve already got dibs….

finally, an appropriately sized rock for my hand.  you listening, marine???

Aug. 30, 2010 at 7:25pm with 2 notes
Thunder Over Alabama!  I know everyone hates on the air force and pilots, but seriously, this is Great Santini, Top Gun cool.  I LOVE air shows.  Especially Thunder Over Alabama (the Cleveland Air Show being a very, very close second, but only because my dad firmly believed no childhood was complete without annual visits and seats in pilots’ laps, which was just as fun at 12-in-cute-shorts as it was at 6-and-totally-in-awe.  Actually, the “in awe” part never left.  Not even now, at 28, which is more like cute-shorts-and-in-awe age.)

Thunder Over Alabama!  I know everyone hates on the air force and pilots, but seriously, this is Great Santini, Top Gun cool.  I LOVE air shows.  Especially Thunder Over Alabama (the Cleveland Air Show being a very, very close second, but only because my dad firmly believed no childhood was complete without annual visits and seats in pilots’ laps, which was just as fun at 12-in-cute-shorts as it was at 6-and-totally-in-awe.  Actually, the “in awe” part never left.  Not even now, at 28, which is more like cute-shorts-and-in-awe age.)

7:05pm with 1 note
“
ALBANY, N.Y. — Gov. David Paterson said today that he doesn’t need to apologize to Muslim groups who criticized him for comments last week in which he described developers of an Islamic center and mosque planned near Ground Zero as peaceful and “almost westernized” Muslims.
Paterson said he sent a letter to the groups today, further explaining his defense of a Sufi Muslim imam’s right to build the mosque and cultural center a couple of blocks from the site of the World Trade Center attacks.
— Gov. David Paterson isn’t apologizing for ‘almost westernized’ Muslim comment | SILive.com
To Paterson’s Handlers,
Please. Stop letting him talk.
Thanks,
New York State
Aug. 26, 2010 at 4:37pm with 2 notes
4:23pm with 1 note
“
So virulent is the Islamophobic hysteria of the neocon and Fox News right — abetted by the useful idiocy of the Anti-Defamation League, Harry Reid and other cowed Democrats — that it has also rendered Gen. David Petraeus’s last-ditch counterinsurgency strategy for fighting the war inoperative. How do you win Muslim hearts and minds in Kandahar when you are calling Muslims every filthy name in the book in New York?
— Op-Ed Columnist - How Fox Betrayed Petraeus - NYTimes.com
4:21pm with 1 note
“
THE “ground zero mosque,” as you may well know by now, is not at ground zero. It’s not a mosque but an Islamic cultural center containing a prayer room. It’s not going to determine President Obama’s political future or the elections of 2010 or 2012. Still, the battle that has broken out over this project in Lower Manhattan — on the “hallowed ground” of a shuttered Burlington Coat Factory store one block from the New York Dolls Gentlemen’s Club — will prove eventful all the same. And the consequences will be far more profound than any midterm election results or any of the grand debates now raging 24/7 over the parameters of tolerance, religious freedom, and the real estate gospel of location, location, location.
— Op-Ed Columnist - How Fox Betrayed Petraeus - NYTimes.com
4:16pm with 2 notes
Numerology: this week in news

1 in 10 American homeowners is at risk of foreclosure

1 in 10 New Yorkers is waging war on Bed Bugs

1 in 10 Pakistanis has been rendered destitute by the floods

1 in 10 salads is “saltier” than a Big Mac

1 in 10 Americans admits to driving drunk (not just drinking but drunk) in the last year

1 in 10 workers believes they’ll never get to actually retire

1 in 10 single men admits to keeping their beloved teddy bears, elephants (like my brother’s baby Zekephant!), and other stuffies and hiding them when their girlfriends come over

1 in 10 Americans don’t want to be younger, richer, thinner, or smarter.  They’re happy just the way they are.

3:12pm with 2 notes
How we do how we do

How we do how we do

2:46pm
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy: Inside a school for suicide bombers | Video on TED.com

This one’s really, really fabulous.  It reminded me a bit of the piece we heard today on Morning Edition and the girls’ madrases.

9:09am with 2 notes
Reblogged from bunnyvictorious
“
Are army bands on the chopping block? Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has hinted as much. On today’s show we take a look at what this could mean for musicians in the military.
—

Soundcheck: Marching Orders for Military Musicians - WNYC

The intro for this featured a teary Marine Corps Hymn which, yes, I’ve sworn to sing my children every night.  Conveniently, I’ve been singing it since the second grade anyway.

(via bunnyvictorious)

9:07am with 1 note
Aug. 25, 2010 at 4:06pm
“
Lauterbach’s rape accusation never was corroborated, but a Marine buddy testified Laurean told him the sex was consensual. A DNA test would prove later that Laurean was not the father of Lauterbach’s child. She was seven months pregnant when she died. Even if the rape accusation was false, the married father of a young child faced having his career derailed for committing adultery with a subordinate, District Attorney Dewey Hudson said. Laurean had already faced an order to stay away from Lauterbach, and his Marine superiors said a hearing on the rape allegation was approaching. “He was a married man. He was her boss. He had sex with her,” Hudson told jurors in his closing argument. “He’s damned if he does or damned if he don’t.” Laurean, who was born in Mexico, fled his home and was on the run until police arrested him in April 2009 in the Mexican municipality of Tacambaro. Prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty so Mexican authorities would return Laurean, who was born in Guadalajara, to the U.S. Laurean was kicked out of the Marines after fleeing as investigators closed in. Testimony showed that hours before Lauterbach was last seen alive, she withdrew $700, left a note for her roommate saying she was quitting the Marines, and bought a bus ticket to El Paso, Texas, on the Mexican border. Lauterbach told the ticket agent that her child was fathered by a fellow Marine she was barred from seeing, but that she expected him to join her soon. The same Marine buddy, Lance Cpl. Blake Costa, testified that Laurean told him he wanted to tell Lauterbach she could stay with his relatives in Mexico, where he would send her money and join her later. Laurean knew that once Lauterbach was declared a deserter, her already shaky credibility within their unit would be destroyed. He hoped he would be cleared to continue his career, Hudson said. Lauterbach’s charred corpse was discovered nearly a month later in a hole under the firepit Laurean built over the grave, prosecutors said. “It almost worked. She bought the ticket,” Hudson said. “But something happened at his home that day. And then he used a second plan, and that was smashing in her head with a crowbar.
— Former Marine sentenced to life in prison - Marine Corps News, news from Iraq - Marine Corps Times
3:47pm with 1 note
“
It goes without saying that Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, et al., feel no responsibility for this whatsoever: A New York City cab driver named Ahmed Sharif was stabbed by a passenger who allegedly asked “Are you a Muslim?” before carrying out the attack. When the cab driver said yes, the passenger allegedly pulled out a Leatherman tool and slashed his throat, arm, and lip. Sharifr was able to lock the passenger in the back of his car, and is currently in the hospital recovering from his injuries. The passenger, Michael Enright, is a 21-year-old filmmaker who recently returned from Afghanistan. In a statement, Sharif said “I feel very sad. I have been here more than 25 years. I have been driving a taxi more than 15 years. All my four kids were born here. I never feel this hopeless and insecure before.
—

NYC Cabbie Stabbed by Islamophobe - The Daily Beast

this is HORRENDOUS.  Seriously, NYC.  Do we need a power outage to get everyone calmed down and back on some decent sense of community again?  Things are just out of control here.