Tagged For Some Memes

I've been pretty remiss in not responding as quickly as I should have to some meme tags, so here goes. Earl of Just the Library Keeper tagged me for two awards - a Lemonade award and a Kreativ Blogger award, and RT of RT's Ponderings tagged me for a Freeze Tag meme. The Lemonade is given to those who make lemonade out of lemons, the Kreativ is pretty self explanatory, and the Freeze Tag requires the respondent to tell six non important things/habits/quirks about themselves, plus all require the requesite return linkage and picking further participants.

The whole meme thing is a fun way to learn more about others and let others get to know us. I've said before how the blogging universe is pretty ingrown - it's more like a small town as far as atmosphere and the "yeah, they're friends with so and so" kind of relationships. We all travel in a fairly small circuit, compared to the hit counts of say - eBay or even the gradually dying New York Times. We've defined an even smaller subset of our little slice of Algore's Intertubes - most of the bloggers I visit and who visit me support the 2nd Amendment and are conservative to a degree. A meme, when followed, allows us to see other blogs with similar leanings that are recommended by the people who nominated us, and those we nominate. Thus, our horizons are expanded somewhat. I'm certainly not gonna start reading The Daily Kos or DU, but the choices our compadres have made do stretch the envelope a bit. I've "met" quite a few people in this fashion, and I follow their trials and tribulations with a great deal of anticipation and enjoyment.

I'm gonna change some of the prerequisites of these memes. I'm going to concentrate on two bloggers I know. Y'all might not realize how much they mean to me, so I guess their lives and general welfare are some of my quirks or traits I'm gonna tell you about. Both bloggers are Kreativ in the sense that they put their lives on the line to post much of their content. And, if there were any that make lemonade out of lemons, well, they certainly do that. The Internet justified it's existence for me when I met these two.

I first "met" Leah when I was hospitalized for my bypass surgery. Steve H. Graham of Tools of Renewal (ex: Hog On Ice) put up a post asking for his readers to pray for me. Leah responded. At that time, Steve nor I really knew who she was. Extraordinary really doesn't begin to cover it. Eighteen at the time, she had lived a pretty rough life. She's had numerous heart surgeries, and she had a heart stoppage that about killed her. She is still partially paralyzed on her left side. At the moment, she is in a coma recovering from further heart surgery - a new valve and pacemaker. She has frequent seizures.

But, she doesn't have time for all that, because she is too busy. She's quite the activist, our Wee Princess (she's a tiny thing). She is a Jew in Israel who supports gay rights, Erez Israel, and her brothers and sisters in arms in the IDF. You can imagine how well this sits with the followers of Mohommed. Her two roommates - UriCohen and Marc Ben-David plus her father have been called into service during Operation Cast Lead. Her boyfriend was killed in the 2007 war with Lebanon. She has been receiving death threats and even a few phone calls from the members of the Religion of Peace. To my everlasting shame, most of the crap comments she receives are from the US. She lives with bars on her windows. She's had to be moved several times before this latest hospitalization.

All this, and she's found time to stop by and pray for an old fat trucker, and leave encouraging comments for me.

I met Mish Weiss through Leah. Mish is one of Leah's friends who posted thank you notes on this blog for my encouraging comments for Leah. Mish is an ex Jersey girl who immigrated to Israel and volunteered for the IDF. She is a sniper. But, it turned out she had leukemia, and traditional chemo and radiation didn't help. She ended up on a treatment regimen centered on arsenic. Yep, you read correctly - arsenic the ancient poison. She finally ended up getting a bone marrow transplant after having all her bone marrow killed off with chemo. So any minor infection or cold might kill her.

She's also had to deal with a personal moral quandary. As a practicing vegan, she felt she couldn't drink Ensure because of the dairy content. Steve seemed to finally convince her it was okay to take it, since it was likely that malnutrition would kill her before the rest of her troubles could do it. She's caught and mostly defeated a cold (not without some drama), and is growing her hair back. She's not back to what she was, but she's getting there.

So, in between health crises, they both post news video clips about what is really happening in Israel, with an Israeli point of view. They have made friends with some Arabs who are risking their lives to even post supportive comments to their blogs. These two have actually made a difference in this world.

When I consider that they have actually accomplished something, I have to contrast what I and all of us do. Some of our circle fight the good fight for the Constitution. I see a lot of like minded individuals voice opinions on forums - what is your breaking point, what do you keep in your SHTF bug out bag, will you fight when they come for your guns, take my guns from my cold dead hands, etc, etc. Mostly all I do here is tell stories. Baby Boomer navel gazing.

But for these two, the S has HTF. There is no bugging out to a secluded mountain cabin in the Rockies with fresh trout every day and a large amount of dry goods. There is no bike or four wheel drive with a small carry bag with enough survival gear to get to this hideout. They are already there. The enemy is dropping rockets on them daily, and burrowing under walls to smuggle arms and munitions to destroy them. There are suicide bombers training to take out any and all civilian targets even as we speak. There are research labs going full steam looking to produce nuclear weapons to turn their land into glass. Like vermin, the girls' enemies never quit. Everyone they know, everyone they meet on the street, is involved directly in this struggle for existence.

Lemonade from lemons? Kreativ blogging? Yeah, I'm for thinking these two have those angles pretty well covered.

So, if y'all have the time, drop on by and leave a positive comment for these gals. When you hit your knees, mention them to The Big Guy. They're featured in my conversations with Him, and I know they pray for me as well. Once they know you, they'll be praying for you, too.