Photo by ELLEN M. BANNER/THE SEATTLE TIMES (h/t Dan Kirkdorffer)
There are lots of great progressive politicians, but when the P-I’s Gregory Roberts asked me why the national netroots had so enthusiastically embraced Darcy Burner, I replied: “She’s one of us. Deep down she’s a geek.”
Burner’s spokesman Sandeep Kaushik hates that quote (as he reminded me last night), but that’s because he doesn’t come from the tech world where the word has become such a term of endearment that it frequently pops up in flattering self-descriptions on online dating services. I do come from that world—or at least, my life has strangely meandered through it—and while like Darcy, I may not fit the usual geek stereotype, I’m enough of one to instantly know the meaning of the code on Darcy’s t-shirt.
“</war>”… that’s XML for “end war.” And the fact that this was the shirt that Darcy was wearing at 7AM when she and her family fled their burning house, tells us in the netroots all we need to know about Darcy Burner.
We’ve asked a lot of Darcy, and I’ve never known a politician who has worked harder to deliver. It was a grueling race in 2006, and after briefly pausing to digest her narrow loss, she got right back to work. But now she needs to take a few days off to tend to her family and herself… to literally get her house in order. And that’s where we all can help.
Darcy needs to raise about $150,000 this July to keep pace with Dave Reichert and her own 2006 fundraising, and every day she takes off makes her campaign budget that much harder to hit. That’s about $5,000 a day.
And that’s why I’m joining with bloggers nationwide to ask our readers to contribute what they can today, to help give Darcy the breathing room she needs to tend to her own affairs without worrying about neglecting her campaign. Every $5,000 increment we raise represents a day that Darcy won’t have to dedicate to her own fundraising efforts. It is a gift more precious than money; it is a gift of time.
Darcy has selflessly requested that you donate money to your local animal shelter or Firefighter’s Benevolent Society, but she needs our help as well. So please give Darcy the time to get her house in order, so that come November, she can help us get our House in order too.
UPDATE:
So far we’ve raised over $25,000 $35,000 $50,000 $65,000 $85,000 this morning today via Act Blue, nationwide. That’s roughly equal to five seven ten thirteen seventeen days of July fundraising. Please keep up the good work, and give today.
Put away the jizz rag Goldy. Its just not going to happen.
Darcy, where’s my damn coffee?
end war!
I sincerely feel sorry for Darcy and her family.
Notice how Goldy is focused on the upper torso area, and Darcy’s t-shirt. Not to mention the ‘7AM’ notation. Morning wood Goldy? 8===)
i feel sorry for a dood who claims “credit” for bringing “justice” to a criminal whose crimes of torture of women as his basis for getting to congress then votes for unconstitutional laws and funding for torture by the government. let’s see, the guy who gave the tortured confession is on death row while the green river torturer gets to watch teevee.
reichert must go!
4 – You seem pissed off that Gary Ridgeway and terrorists aren’t being handled with TLC. Boo fucking hoo.
The real question for The Darcy and her supporters is how she can play the sympathy angle of this to her advantage. Don’t try and tell me this is not on your mind.
Actually, it’s HTML, but who cares. I just sent in my $100 to help her through the day.
Hell, I may donate more just due to the presence of your very own troll in My Goldy Itches…what a tool.
Every time I read the comment sections here I find the lowest form of troll imaginable. and that’s saying something, because I usually spend time on National sites with huge readerships.
You guys are really the lowest of the low.
Thank you, Goldie, for being on top of this. It is now front page at DailyKos. I think we can do it.
Invalid reasons to vote for someone for public office:
they’re a geek
they would be cool to have a beer with
they have an ipod
they have a cool haircut
they have a cool tshirt
Fuck off and die, neocon fucks.
I was going to pass on this one but you made me donate instead.
raggmopp spews:
Real geeks care, and you’re wrong. There is no HTML “war” tag, so this would be XML, or SGML if we really want to split hairs.
@10 “Fuck off and die, neocon fucks.”
I love the sentiment. It’s also short and to the point. Well said, Jim.
re 6: Too bad you can’t see an itch.
12
I agree with your assessment, but would propose one slight improvement–“Fuck off and die, fucking neocon fucks.”
Kirk, as far as I understand it, the bloggers I’ve heard describe Darcy as a geek tend to mean it as shorthand for her being honest, intelligent, information-seeking and concerned about substance. It means something specific to certain people, though that may not always translate.
I actually read the shirt as having a much more profound message: “War ends here.”
That bit of XML is a demarcation of the end of a block of data enclosed in tags marking it as of type “war.” What’s profound to me is that by putting it into context by wearing it on your shirt, you’re saying “war ends here – with me.”
My thoughts and prayers go out to Darcy and her family. What a trying, difficult time. I hope she sticks in there with the campaign and can represent not only her geographic constituents but us like-minded geeks across the country.
@14 I see your point. In the spirit of things, I suggest the following slight modification; “Fuck off and fucking die, you fucking neocon fucks.”
17
And who says perfection cannot be achieved?
Itches @6,
Darcy is too busy canceling credit cards, getting new glasses, drivers license, etc, buying socks and underwear and stuff like that to worry about playing “the sympathy angle of this to her advantage.”
I on the other hand, have plenty of time and no such qualms. Darcy deserves our sympathy, and the best way to help her right now is to try to shoulder some of the burden of the campaign so that she can tend to herself and her family.
I gave $25 just because the trolls around here are so vicious.
Take that, wingnuts.
5 MGI
Fuck off.
Every time someone mentions how maybe it’s NOT such a good idea to take to take the word of a lying administration that they have evidence that some poor SOB who ended up in their clutches is a “terrorist,” and that maybe committing war crimes by beating, torturing and murdering these people in violation of US and international law is also maybe, oh, immoral and repellent for the world’s leading democracy to take part in, you guys whine about how extending basic human rights and the rule of law to these poor miscreants is “handling them with TLC.”
Well the U.S. of A. is a criminal enterprise at this point, and here’s just one example: the government just got slapped down during a habeas-like challenge to detention (under the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005) because the Bushies insisted that the court “take their word for it” that their allegations agains the challenger were true. Well, fuck that (and the court agrees with me).
We’re holding AND torturing a bunch of Uighurs NOT because they’re “terrorists” but to placate China. Is that part of your conception of the strong, take-no-shit nation? Bush is a pussy.
Darcy hugged a rabbit, and now it’s time for me to return the favor.
[Big fat clinging virtual rabbit hug]
In case you don’t know what a virtual rabbit hug is like … it’s soft, cuddly, warm, and has pink ears.
@1 Fuck you!
China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo
New Your Times
And now we know where the Bush Regime learned how to torture. From the Red Chinese.
Darcy Burner: “It’s Stuff”
A bit from KOMO’s on the scene report.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ex5NO_qDdeY
I found out about this following a link from the KOMO weather report.
While I understand that KOMO might want to point out that Burner is in a political race, I thought it was tacky to end the story with Reichart.
Yea vote for her because she has a cool t-shirt!
Finally a platform I can respect….
@27 Better than voting for an ineffective Republican when that party is headed for the backwaters of American politics for a few decades. The 8th could use a Dem with Burner’s qualities representing them. It’d be in their own best interests, as I’m certain you would agree. That aside, yeah, it’s a cool t-shirt.
I already donated, but I just gave a little extra once I read about these trolls. Great work, folks!
Actually Bryan Johnson ended his report by informing us that the dog’s name is “Bruce Wayne”..aka Batman. Stellar reporting but I cut it anyway.
i dont even live in her state and will send in some coin, just because at this stage, every republican piece of shit that has had his head up Bush’s ass deserves to be shit right out like the vermin they are…at this stage anyone who does not fight for war crimes tribunal for Cheney and Bush should not call themselves patriotic nor citizens, read your history folks, war crimes not prosecuted will mean the loss of our freedom.
Go ahead and trash-talk, right-wingers. Dig that hole deeper.
Your guy’s going down come November, and there’s no amount of spittle-flecked ranting that can take the sting out of that.
I gave $50…..
Is this really a “hot” red-head, named Burner, whose house burned down? That’s funny.
Wow, she is kinda cute isnt she. Hey now!!
JT
http://www.FireMe.To/udi
This is the first time I have caught your site,
I am not from around there
good story
Not for the shirt, for the politics
I back-checked your Darcy and your David
I gave $25
Then i read the spews
I gave $25 in the name of
MY GOLDY ITCHES
I drop a $100 bucks into a trust every month
This is what i do with that money.
I should have a tax rebate check in the mail
I am not counting on it so if I get it
It goes to deserving Americans
Nobody else in this world is going to help us get out of the XXX into which the Bush Crime Syndicate has dipped our national reputation.
We are all we got
Last March I got a letter from the IRS, postage-due.
Ominous?
Thank you goldy for getting this all over the “nets”
and to the trolls — this is why you will always lose, because if this fire happened to you, the only ones that would come and give you losers a helping hand with be liberals like us – your nutjob friends would be laughing their asses off at you and giving you another push to drop you on your knees
The funniest thing about the neocons is that they are so engrossed in their own ignorance that they can’t grasp that everyone knows they’re full of shit.
They’re all older than old school and have yet to grasp that today only a minority continues to believe anything that the zionist owned mainstream media has to say.
The Neocons/Zionists are nothing more than a modern incarnation of the Nazis – except this time around we have the internet to expose the lies being used to justify ethnic cleansing and war – the germans didn’t.
This is the first time I have caught your site,
I am not from around there
good story
Not for the shirt, for the politics
I back-checked your Darcy and your David
I gave $25
Then i read the spews
I gave $25 in the name of
MY GOLDY ITCHES
I drop a $100 bucks into a trust every month
This is what i do with that money.
I should have a tax rebate check in the mail
I am not counting on it so if I get it
It goes to deserving Americans
Nobody else in this world is going to help us get out of the XXX into which
the Bush Crime Syndicate has dipped our national reputation.
Last March I got a letter from the IRS, postage-due.
Ominous?
They’re all older than old school and have yet to grasp that today only a minority continues to believe anything that the zionist owned mainstream media has to say.Nothing is worth fighting for, ever.Blame Bush for everything, it’s the fault of the Jews.Keep talking liberals.Just. Keep. Talking.
I’d hit it.
How’s the “Impeach Bush” thing going, douchebags?
By the way, I’m from Oklahoma where we just stole your basketball team. Watch, all the liberal pussies will now claim they just donated to the ugly girl’s campaign because I’m a troll. You are so predictable.
@16 You better be Jon Stewart, or all my dreams are dead.
I’d like to remind your readers that Darcy has also been endorsed by a new pro-peace Jewish lobby called J Street. If you’re Jewish or if you support Israeli-Palestinian peace you can also donate to her via J Street.
We need Congressional representatives who aren’t afraid to buck the AIPAC/Israel lobbies of this world. I think Darcy’s got what it takes.
And I’m hoping that #42 is Jon Stewart as well or maybe Stephen Colbert.
So I’m glad we can do something to help. My SSA check came today, she has $25 off the top. Do we know what the running tally is?
shooped
first i almost blew past this, but after seeing all the neocon spew in the comments (yeah, including the oklahoma dipsh*t above) i donated $25. it was just too much when one of them mistook </war> for html instead of xml. that was the last straw – and yes, i used ascii to get around the no tags rule in comments. geek power!
side note: i’m surprised neocons even use computers anymore. i thought they would all follow john mccain’s lead and plea ignorance.
oops… my bad on #7. didn’t mean to insinuate. well, you live you learn.
Their is always some dumb ass in the comment trail of any good photo saying it is shopped. This isn’t shopped, dumbass.
Wait, her website says that she was a lead manager a Microsoft yet her house, despite the damage, looks like she’s a dirt poor redneck. The size of the siding alone indicates its 20+ year old rancher. Do we really want someone in office who isn’t even successful enough in her own life to live in a decent home?
#3 on REDDIT at the moment
Nice. Self described liberals supporting the squashing of dissenting opinions. It pains me that you are blind to the fact you are just as bad as the ones you hate.
STOP THE PARTISAN BULLSHIT
Do you think your helping the cause wishing for the death of the other side? Really?
Did I hallucinate, or was some goon just bragging about being from Oklahoma?
#50. Kevin Sweet – Seriously?
The house was originally a cabin on the lake dating to about the 1950s and had been remodeled several times. Her family had lived there since 2002. Burner and her husband bought the 2,250-square-foot, 3-bedroom house for $550,000, according to county property records. In a recent interview, she described it as “teeny” compared to the other homes in the neighborhood.
Maybe a mention of what she’s running for would help . . . . and what she’s running on besides . Everyone is a geek so that doesn’t help, so much, to summarize her.
#50. Kevin Sweet ??
The notion that perhaps someone who might eschew displays of material wealth, or perhaps might choose to live simply would make one unfit for public service??
You are what is wrong with America… idiot