Happy Birthday, America!
Comments: 14 - Date: July 4th, 2008 - Categories: Team Proctor, I (heart) Pasadena!, The State of Things, C'mon City Council!, Freedom, Freedom!, Elsewhere In The Area, Top Ten Lists, The Proc Says..., Ham And Egger Awards, Drawings I Send To The Mayor
O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!O! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
Happy 4th of July! America’s birthday! My favorite holiday - after all, I’m from where it all began. Let’s celebrate the greatest country in the world..a country that allows me (and others) the right to make an ass out of myself day in and day out. U-S-A! U-S-A! I’ll be celebrating with Kelli tonight - checking out the amazing Rose Bowl fireworks - the largest fireworks display in Southern California. It’s no Penn’s Landing, but it’s pretty damn close.
Now I was in a good, uber-patriotic mood this morning. Until I saw the cover of the LA City Beat - a paper published by Southland Publishing (also owner of the PW but NOT affiliated with this website and vice versa). I’m not posting the picture of the cover here because it’s absolutely disgusting, disgraceful, saddening, and extremely Anti-American.
I’ve been harboring contempt for City Beat for quite some time. Every week it’s more and more hipster America-bashing - particularly by someone who calls themslves “Commie Girl” and thinks that’s cool or something. It’s so fucking “cool” to hate on America these days - yet these people would be missing it quite quickly if they moved to Canada or the UK or wherever. I guess those tattooed and pierced dregs of society they’ve got over there are grasping at straws while trying to figure out how to make people care about them like people care about the LA Weekly (not that I care about that paper, either - actually I think most people read the LA Weekly to get $5 off of nightclub covers).
I’m sick and tired of people like her - she’s actually the FUCKING EDITOR OF THE NEWSPAPER. I’m sick and tired of people thinking that just because you love America, just because you’re happy to live in a country with its many positives (and many follies), you’re some beer-swilling redneck who watches NASCAR. I love America and I’m proud to live here and I’m not embarrassed or ashamed to admit that. I don’t think someone should be admitting they love the country they’re in. There’s NOTHING WRONG with being patriotic.
Even some hot people hate America…
This chick should be happy she lives in a country which allows her the freedom to criticize our country and to bash it day in and day out. Instead, she proudly calls herself the same title that a freedom-less country like China calls itself: a Commie. What a horrible thing to do on the 4th of July - the day that our country began its great journey to allow you to print such trite and insignificant crap each week. Thankfully, the Constitution also allows me to berate your horrible excuse for a column and opinion into the next century.
Rebecca Schoenkopf (sounds like a Nazi last name to me..) - you get a special July 4th Ham And Egger Award. It’s what our forefathers would have wanted. I’m ashamed to even be loosely connected to you through work. I wish I could give you a one-way ticket to China or Cuba, since you pride yourself on the whole Communist thing. I’m sure you’ll be staring at the fireworks from wherever you are, drinking a beer, and having a good time….trying to make us all think you’ll be staying indoors, hating the country which allows you the freedoms to write like the Anti-American that you are, smoking some marijuana while in your Che Guevara t-shirt, watching “Loose Change“, and blaring “music” from Rage Against The Machine. Get the fuck out of here with that bullshit.
I also e-mailed her and you can do the same at this link:
This week’s CityBeat cover is disgusting, saddening, and offends me as an
American.Why is it so horrible to love America any more?
- Aaron Proctor
Pasadena, CA
http://www.proctorformayor.com
By the way - if you were looking to increase readership with a half-assed-Photoshopped cover used for “shock value”, it was a pretty counterproductive effort. All you did was further the hipster America-hating - the embarrassing portrait of what everyone else thinks all Californians think and act like. You may have gained a few readers of that worthless and rebellious ilk - but you certainly lost one here (not that I ever really read your paper, more like glance through it and laugh because it’s probably put together by hipster white people who have dreadlocks and don’t shower for 3 days straight. Obama in `08, right?). Hating on America might be all the Hollywood rage but - to me - when you verbally and visually spit on our Nation, you’re spitting on me. You’re no worse than the terrorists you’re defending.
**
Well, some Communist bitch isn’t going to ruin my 4th of July. Here’s a brand new Top Ten List:
TOP TEN THINGS I LOVE ABOUT AMERICA
10. Disneyland
9. Conservative talk radio
8. Politics
7. The National Anthem
6. Burger King
5. The “George Washington Bridge” song
4. John Philip Sousa
3. Baseball
2. Professional wrestling
1. Freedom
**
Pasadena PIO Ann Erdman recently posted a photo of Pasadena Star-News reporter and blogger, Dan Abendschein:
I swear - if you give this guy a cigar and put on his sunglasses and more of a tan - he’d be:
**
I’ve always found this picture hilarious. It’s been floating around the Interwebs for years. It’s a picture of ABC 7’s Marc Brown talking about a rape suspect. Notice the sketch in the corner, though:
**
I like to send drawings to Mayor Bogaard. I think it annoys him. It cracks me up, though. Here’s my latest:
Be seeing you and Happy 4th! Now go enjoy Dusty Rhodes vs. Steve Corino from the good days of ECW.
- AP
Pingback by Happy Birthday, USA! | The Foothill Cities Blog - July 4, 2008 @ 4:59 am
[…] More here - including me going off on the LA CityBeat and their Anti-American cover design they decided to use this week. […]
Pingback by News » about : patriotic music - July 4, 2008 @ 6:24 am
[…] blogs related to [patriotic music] 30%-off 4th. of July sale… I wonder how many more will hop on the bandwagon? Filed under News, Software Release | Permalink | No comment | Add to Del.icio.us or Digg We just got wind of an awesome contest happening over at Tonemine: use their web-based mixing tools to put together the most badass ringtone you can muster, and leave it to the voters to pick the best. It’s one thing just translating MP3s to ringtone format, but being able to make your own is especially cool. They’ve got(Quote from : 「Future Shop launches BlackBerry app」) I watched Big Spring’s amazing fireworks show with my new West Texas friends last night, and it was quite a sight. These people know how to do it up right and I was very impressed. Their symphony orchestra played patriotic music in the park amphitheater, and we sat close enough to the exploding display to be covered in ashes by the time it was done. It was like an interactive fireworks show. Since it is a holiday here in the U.S., I do believe we should follow the lead of banks and post (Quote from : 「Independence Day」) The Star-Spangled Banner O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming. Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming. And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?On the shore, dimly se(Quote from : 「Happy Birthday, America!」) Sally Coleman writes - “I have to admit that I am chuckling to myself a little; how strange it seems for me a Brit to be posting the Friday Five on 4th July! I realise that most of our revgals will be celebrating in some way today, but I hope that you can make a little room for Friday Five! From my short stay in Texas my memories of the celebrations are of fireworks and picnics, one year we went in to central Houston to watch the fireworks and hear the Symphony Orchestra play, we were welcomed (Quote from : 「Friday Five Fireworks Edition」) To all our U.S. readers, happy Fourth! If you want to celebrate without the traditional explosions and fireworks, here are a few other options… • Continuing from yesterday’s festivities, the Fourth of July Celebration at Citizen Bar features a $25 drink package (along with a free burger before 1 p.m.) and a bags tournament. (11:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.) • Are you a fan of anime? Break out your costumes for J-Pop Night, a Japanese pop dance party at darkroom. ($5 after 11 p.m., 9:00 p.m. – 2:00 a.m(Quote from : 「Fourth of July Celebrations 2008」) […]
Comment by Pasadena Closet Conservative - July 4, 2008 @ 7:39 am
Commie Girl and the rest of her pathetic, ungrateful ilk should take my Independence Day Challenge (my latest post), then get down on her knees, kiss the ground, and thank God that she has been given the inalienable right to hate the country that provides her with freedom of speech.
Comment by Semi used progressive - July 4, 2008 @ 11:15 am
An illustration of that cover is now included in the dictionary under the entry for “poor taste” this type of hyperbole is BS that doesn’t advance the discussion one iota, it is unproductive whether on the pages of a weekly rag or spouted over the air waves on AM talk. We live in a country where jerks from either end of the spectrum can spew forth their idiocy and I have the right to call them jerks. Thank God for the 1st amendment.
I have a dream that one day people will stop being a**holes even though they still have a constitutional right to do so.
Comment by Irina Netchaev - July 4, 2008 @ 11:19 am
Happy 4th Aaron! You are on a roll today. So tell us exactly how you feel, will you?
I agree with you. Enough of this America bashing! Come on… it’s the greatest country in the world! Everyone wants to be here, to live here and be part of it. The greatest part about being in America is that no one is making you live here if you’re unhappy - pack up your stuff and move on.
Stay safe and enjoy the fireworks!
Comment by Miss Havisham - July 4, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
HAH! I’ll bet if John McCain was caught having sex with a goat on the White House lawn you’d call it exercising his freedom for his love of animals. Booyah!
I wasn’t interested in City Beat before, now I am. Thanks.
Comment by Aaron Proctor - July 4, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
Yeah, Dianne..that’s exactly what I’d do *rolls eyes*
I call this a cheap shot by hipster ultra-Leftists who whine and whine and whine but are too high to remember to vote on Election Day.
I call this using their 1st Amendment right to look like an idiot. This chick is going to get verbally served if I ever run into her.
Comment by Pasadena Closet Conservative - July 5, 2008 @ 10:31 am
It figures. Somebody who proudly calls herself Commie Girl writes an article that features no creativity, no originality and no intelligence, and Miss H. gleefully announces that she’s the newspaper’s newsest, biggest fan. Baa-aaa-aaa-hhh.
Comment by Moderate - July 5, 2008 @ 10:59 am
That’s exactly what you would do Aaron. You defend Republicans at every turn and blame every problem on limo liberals. You are as bad as Commie Girl.
Comment by Aaron Proctor - July 5, 2008 @ 1:06 pm
Moderate: This chick hates America. She hates Obama, too. It’s not like she’s a Democrat. She’s a Communist.
I don’t hate America.
Comment by Miss Havisham - July 6, 2008 @ 3:48 pm
Hey. wait. I was plowed when I wrote that. I will never again add Sapphire gin to my Earl Grey.
Comment by DannyMac - July 6, 2008 @ 4:53 pm
Only thing you forgot or probably wanted to….where was Dub Ya in your top ten things I love about America? Yea hide and seek when you mention his name, he ruined a perfectly great nation. Oh and he’s going to the Commie nation for another farewell trip before we Im”peach” Bush and throw him in the basket before he falls from the tree since he’s rotten
Comment by Aaron Proctor - July 6, 2008 @ 5:22 pm
Yes, because I’ve totally professed my love and adoration for GW Bush.
Get out of here with that shit.
Comment by Altadenablog - July 8, 2008 @ 10:41 pm
Ooooh — CityBeat! I was wondering where those dregs who wrote/photographed for the Reader went (Andy Klein! Gary Leonard!) and now we know. Where’s Jesus of the Week? Or the Angriest Dog in the World? At least they’ve got Ted Rall!
(excuse me please, I just threw up in my mouth)
And “Commie Girl?” Puhleeeze. Give ‘em hell, Proc!
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