Purple Hearts

Work can make strange bedfellows sometimes.

Case in point: Who knew that my good friend & former co-worker from my very first job back in New York City would turn into the wildly successful West Coast blogger, The Truth Laid Bear?

Now, if you look at truthlaidbear.com, the first thing you'll probably notice that he and I have WILDLY different political views. I'm a die-hard Howard Dean-iac, and he's one of the founders of the "Top Conservatives on Twitter".

But, like I alluded to in a recent tweet about Andrew Sullivan, these are the kind of conservatives I can deal with: they're principled, but rational. We can debate & disagree, while still agreeing that we all have the country's (and, consequently, each other's) best interests at heart.

So, even though I think many, many conservatives hide behind the military as an excuse for any number of, shall we say, questionable decisions, I know my friend is sincere in his beliefs and in his support for the soldiers themselves.

And, as a child of a family with deep ties to the Army & Marine Corps, support for wounded vets is the very definition of common ground.

As our president likes to say, there are no Red States or Blue States, but the UNITED States of America.

That said, Mr. Bear recently brought this project to my attention: Project Valour-IT. It's a charitable campaign designed to raise money to provide laptops & other enabling technologies for severely wounded war veterans. He mentioned to me that they'd gotten a ton of support from the conservative blogsphere, but it's virtually invisible to the left side of the social media universe.

Fellow liberals & progressives - I encourage you all to take a look, spread the word, and make a donation. Regardless of your politics, these are people in need. Show your hearts.