I just received another web award, this time the one with the best graphic I've seen thus far, the Honest Scrap Award. I got the award from John Abuzz, a blog that has an amazing ability to mellowly discuss things going on that make so many of us liberals apoplectic. I also admire the guy for passing it along, since it promotes community and solidarity among liberal bloggers.

Here's the explanation of the award.

“This award is bestowed upon a fellow blogger whose blog content or design is, in the giver’s opinion, brilliant.”

"Scrap means left over, fragments, discarded material. Many times truth and honesty are discarded material, considered fragments and left over. People like us need to tell it like it is, and let the scraps fall where they will.

This gives me a chance to acknowledge more great blogs and do my little bit to link liberal and progressive bloggers. Solidarity is a concept that Americans hear little about. It's time to practice it. That's what I want to brag about.

These are in no particular order, and I have limited myself to choosing seven blogs in case I get another award in the future. (I'll put all the rules and regulations at the end.)

Genocide for Jesus
This blog does an excellent job of monitoring and debunking the activities of heterosexist religious extremists. It's a dirty job, and I'm glad I have this blog doing it for me. The blog's name rocks too.

Mock, Paper, Scissors
Skewering the annoying and hypocritical is entertaining. It can be quite informative if it is done as effectively as they Scissorheads do. All the crap that is going on makes having a good laugh quite therapeutic.

Cindy Sheehan
Ms. Sheehan's questioning of the bullshit we are constantly fed did not end with the war on Iraq. She is asking just the kind of questions all of us should be considering about the roles of the banksters, the broksters, and the politicians in making our society dysfunctional.

ENDABlog
This blog is an excellent resource to keep informed on transgender issues. It also does an excellent job expressing the perfectly reasonable frustration and disappointment so many in the transgender community experience at the way conservative lgbt organizations like the HRC have thrown them under the bus. It can be painful reading at times, but non-trans queers like myself have an ethical obligation to read and pay attention anyway.

Preserve, Protect, and Defend
If you want to know why people are liberal, not just that they are liberal, this blog is a good place to start. When you read the postings there, you get at the underlying reasons for the blogger's liberal views, even when the subject is the latest thing bombarding us from the corporate media's news cycle.

Intolerant Faith
This blog focuses on what is a touchy issue for many: the cruel and senseless religious faith can motivate people to do. Breaking a media taboo is one of the most important thing a blogger can do. This blog does it quite well.

Green Is the New Red
If you think you are aware of the full extent of human rights abuses started under the "war on terror," think again unless you know that environmental and animal rights activists are being included in this. Whether you agree or disagree with the views and actions of the people being targeted, conflating vandalism (or plain old dissent) with terrorism endangers anyone whose political views are outside what corporate interests consider acceptable. It also cruelly mocks the victims and families of victims of actual terrorism.

Rules and Regulations

These are the rules and the instructions for the 'chosen ones:

1.You must brag about the award

2.You must include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on you and link back to the blogger

3.You must choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or you may improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends (hey, I haven't been actively blogging that long myself)!

4.Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Or think of it this way--show the seven random victims' names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were , prized with Honest Weblog Award. Well, there's no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon.

5.List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on with the instructions!

Ten Things About Me

(I stuck this at the end because I figured this is the part people would find least interesting on a political blog.)

1) I adore chocolate.

2) My favorite artists (not in order): Childe Hassam, Renoir, Rachel Whiteread, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Jaspar Johns and his lover Robert Rauschenberg (I loved their work before I found out about their personal lives.), Doris Salcedo

3) I prefer men who don't shave their bodies.

4) I hate okra.

5) I wish telepathy existed but am sensible enough to acknowledge that it does not.

6) I hate websites with small font sizes even though I can read the text.

7) I hope I never have to spend time in Texas again.

8) Twitter appears to me to be the most effective boring content generator in the history of the Internet.

9) I love orchids.

10) I wish I was not allergic to dogs.