RESPONDING TO AN IDIOT...
I was just reading the "Comments" section of an online news article about this fiscal cliff business when some ding-a-ling started ranting about how "you @#$!" liberals don't know anything about Pearl Harbor" and tried to make the argument that liberals are a bunch of military-hating traitors who ought to be rounded up and punished for being traitors to the country.
Setting aside for a moment the fact that I'm still trying to figure out what Pearl Harbor and the fiscal cliff have to do with one another in the first place, I fired off a response which I'd like to share again here:
I'm a lifelong liberal whose grandfather fought as a member of the U.S. Amry in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II; whose father was serving in the U.S. Air Force at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis; whose uncle served with the U.S. Marine Corps in Vietnam; who served myself in the USAF in the mid-1980s and was stationed in Athens, Greece, during a period of some pretty extreme anti-American terrorism in that country; and whose little brother served with the U.S. Army in Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm. Anybody who says THIS liberal doesn't care about the military is going to get a face full of "You ain't seen nothing yet" - ESPECIALLY if the ones doing the criticizing are self-righteous blowhards who pulled strings or found other means to get out of serving (yeah, I'm looking at you, Limbaugh).
Guess what, you vainglorious pinheads: It isn't just conservatives who fight and bleed and die for this country. I'm sick and tired of people branding me as a traitor or worse because I refuse to worship at the throne of the Almighty Fox. And based on the outcome of this most recent presidential election I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels that way.
So shut up.
All right, end of rant. My apologies to you, my friends, for taking up so much of your valuable time with this...
In : Opinion
Tags: america
John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996).
Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.)
John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something.
In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems.
He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.
