Have you ever asked your child a question too many times?

My three-year-old son had a lot of problems with potty training and I was on him constantly. One day we stopped at Taco Bell for a quick lunch in between errands. It was very busy, with a full dining room.

While enjoying my taco, I smelled something funny, so of course I checked my seven-month-old daughter, and she was clean. Then I realized that Danny had not asked to go potty in a while, so I asked him if he needed to go, and he said "No." I kept thinking, "Oh Lord, that child has had an accident, and I don’t have any clothes with me."

Then I said, "Danny, are you SURE you didn’t have an accident?"

"No," he replied.

I just KNEW that he must have had an accident, because the smell was getting worse. Soooooo! I asked one more time, "Danny, did you have an accident?"

This time he jumped up, yanked down his pants, bent over and spread his cheeks and yelled, "SEE MOM, IT’S JUST FARTS!!"

While 30 people nearly choked to death on their tacos laughing, he calmly pulled up his pants and sat down. An old couple made me feel better by thanking me for the best laugh they’d ever had!

Republicans are getting all worked up over the party to end all parties, its the 2010 Tea Bagger Ball in Memphis Tennessee!

Of course, they are not the only ones interested in this party!  Democrats, Independents, and even the remaining Libertarians with a sense of humor that haven’t gotten sucked   into the Tea Bag blow out can’t wait for the ultimate smack down in Tea Bag jokes.

The more socially conservative, conservatives were appalled last year to learn that the fun founding father catch phrases that worked 240 years ago in politics had taken on a very sexual connotation in the present.  Even though many of those same socially conservative, conservatives are the SAME ones that give regular good ol’ boy conservatives a bad name by fornicating with any thing with a fornication button regardless of sex and religion while demonizing how bad that is for everyone else to do out of the other side of any remaining open orifice, they were none-the less surprise to find out that tea bags today can also refer to TESTICLES!

Fun Factoid! Did you know that both Tea Bags and Testicles hang around like limp sacks, not doing much of anything unless you pull on their string up and down a little bit?

Yup, it is true, so knock yourself out!

So if you have $500 for a plate of dinner, a $250 hotel room in Memphis and some twisted morals that you don’t let your congregation know too much about, head on down to the Tea Baggers Ball!

Got Tea Bags? by ViralGrapeWrath

Got Tea Bags? by ViralGrapeWrath

Don’t Teabag Me, BroT-Shirt by ClarityRules

I’m not anti-Republican, just anti-BONEHEAD by noyoudidnt

Fuk’d News Mug by ClarityRules

A fantastic and amazing winter poem has recently been unearthed by a truly talented poet, a poet that could rival the skills of Shakespeare or in the American genre Whitman.  There is even a scant sense of rye humor that hearkens back to great commentators and writers and humorists like Mark Twain or Bill Cosby.

Here is that Amazing poem recently sent to myself in the form of a viral email.

‘ WINTER ‘
by Abigail Elizabeth McIntyre

Crap….It’s Cold

The End

The world’s largest (formerly) living snake was found dead in a large drained water complex in Brazil.  The snake measure over 50 feet long.  You may feel that it is now safe to venture back into the Amazon, but investigators found fragments of a snake skin (incomplete) that they suspect may have measured close to 70 feet.  It could be the mate of this dead snake.

You get sparks, some police brutality, a fearless yet restrained family of the victim in the ambulance, a lawsuit against the police officer and maybe the state and unemployment goes up in Oklahoma by 1 person.

On the monthly anniversary of the passing of WWII hero Darrell Shifty Powers, who was in all of the Band of Brothers episodes portrayed by Peter Youngblood Hills, I received an email that looked like one of those viral scams, but the email in fact is legitimate in content. 

"I could hear bullets and shrapnel hitting the plane. As I jumped out the door, I could see that the left motor was on fire." – Darrell Shifty Powers talking about jumping over Normandy, France, on D-Day.

Many, many of you have sent me notice that Shifty Powers of the heroic Easy Company, 2-506th PIR, 101st Airborne Division, died on June 17th.  I had no idea that he had passed on.  I have written here a lot about Easy Company and even have an autographed photo (Bill Guarnere) on my desk of the jump into Holland (Market Garden).

If you use GoogleNews (any combo of Darrell and/or Shifty Powers), there are less then ten notices of his death.  There are less than four articles about his passing on from "old media" news agencies.

Quite frankly, this is an affront to a genuinely good man.  Shifty Powers received two Bronze Stars and a CIB and fought in every campaign that Easy Company was in.  He was severely injured on his way home in a truck accident (the irony is that the men of Easy rigged the lottery to go home so Shifty would be first, but he ended up being one of the last to get home after an extensive hospitalization).

This email has gone viral about Shifty:

We’re hearing a lot today about big splashy memorial services.

I want a nationwide memorial service for Darrell "Shifty" Powers.

Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Infantry. If you’ve seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the History Channel, you know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 episodes, and Shifty himself is interviewed in several of them.

I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn’t know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was at the right gate, and noticed the "Screaming Eagle", the symbol of the 101st Airborne, on his hat.

Making conversation, I asked him if he’d been in the 101st Airborne or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the 101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served, and how many jumps he made.

Quietly and humbly, he said "Well, I guess I signed up in 1941 or so, and was in until sometime in 1945 . . . " at which point my heart skipped.

At that point, again, very humbly, he said "I made the 5 training jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy . . . . do you know where Normandy is?" At this point my heart stopped.

I told him yes, I know exactly where Normandy was, and I know what D-Day was. At that point he said "I also made a second jump into Holland, into Arnhem." I was standing with a genuine war hero . . . . and then I realized that it was June, just after the anniversary of D-Day.

I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France, and he said "Yes. And it’s real sad because these days so few of the guys are left, and those that are, lots of them can’t make the trip." My heart was in my throat and I didn’t know what to say.

I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back in Coach, while I was in First Class. I sent the flight attendant back to get him and said that I wanted to switch seats. When Shifty came forward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have it, that I’d take his in coach.

He said "No, son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man very happy." His eyes were filling up as he said it. And mine are brimming up now as I write this.

Shifty died on June 17 after fighting cancer.

There was no parade.

No big event in Staples Center.

No wall to wall back to back 24×7 news coverage.

No weeping fans on television.

And that’s not right.

Let’s give Shifty his own Memorial Service, online, in our own quiet way. Please forward this email to everyone you know. Especially to the veterans.

Rest in peace, Shifty.

"A nation without heroes is nothing." – Roberto Clemente
Thank you,
Doug Corrigan
PC / Business Process & Systems Management
Toyota Motor Engineering & Manufacturing North America, Inc.
Phone: xxx-xxx-xxxx
Fax: xxx-xxx-xxxx
email: doug.corrigan@xxxxxxxxx

Authors Note on the topic of Darrell ‘Shifty’ Powers

I can not speak to whether or not the authenticity of the author is real yet, but the sentiment in the email is valid.  I have removed the authors phone and email addresses from this post, but did want to help increase the spread of this particular message.  We joke here at ViralGrapeVine about just about anything, and usually the wrong things at that. We have the luxury of doing that because veterans like Darrell helped secure our freedoms.  I am a veteran myself of the first Gulf War but my own story is of almost insignificant consequence compared to Darrell Powers with one small exception.

Just because a hero succeeds or survives or accomplishes something so great, it doesn’t mean the rest of us should stop trying.  I joined the service during the build up to the Persian Gulf War.  I was not drafted, did not need to join or anything like that.  I’m not a warmonger nor do I have many romantic notions about war or the military.  Members of my family have fought in almost every war that our country has been involved in since before the country was a country.  Yet, there was no family call for me to join, no wrong headed pursuit of family honor or anything.  In fact, many, possibly a majority of the veterans I spoke with in my family before I joined counseled me NOT to join the military.  I was dumb and lucky and things worked out fine for me. 

I also did not shy away from doing something (the dumb part) but I did it knowing the risks, knowing the potential consequences of my actions and more, some might equate that with courage.  My point is that even as I write this article on a site that is mostly egregiously poor satire, I do that to help protect the boundaries of my speech, trying to keep it free, and usually only just barely jogging myself out of writers block so that I may write somewhere else.

We can celebrate Darrell ‘Shifty’ Powers in a national memorial, but putting his statue up on a physical pedestal is not really what this is about.  So if you pass on this email, if you have passed it on already or if you do anything to help promote this effort, remember that your efforts will be largely wasted if you personally are not doing something, anything everyday to also protect our freedoms.  You can worship a hero all you like, but if you don’t make even small heroic steps yourself, then your worship of said hero is hollow & baseless. 

It’s called CurseBird and NO they do not have an affiliate program.  So you can go and curse them out on Twitter all you like, its probably not going to make your tweets have any more impact than they don’t already!

Washington DC almost ground to a halt this week as Congress and President Obama railed against the injustice of AIG paying $165 million in bonuses to employees as allowed by the legislation that Congress and President Obama had signed.

“Its not fair.  We didn’t read that trillion dollar bailout legislation.  How were we supposed to know there was a ‘previous contracts safe harbor clause’ in the bill as requested by the Treasury Department?” bemoaned both Democrat and Republican Congress people in both the House and the Senate.

Fortunately, Congress and the President were almost literally saved from themselves by a rising star in the economic advisory team of the Obama administration, who was just recently paroled from a prison sentence for not carrying the proper identification at a DC hospital.  Under Secretary of Economic Stimulus, Relief, Recovery and Credit Card Debt Elimination Nhat Shooeur has proposed a solution that seems to have finally put this problem to rest.  Under Shooeur’s plan the government will institute a new tax on bonus earnings.

The legislation is on a fast track in the Senate and in the House, and the President has already indicated that he will sign this bill in a heart beat.

“Hand it to me now, I’ll sign it and we can all read it next week.” stated President Obama, “There is no time to waste.  We have to get our country back on track, and we can’t do it without this last $165 million.  Let’s face it we’re broke if we don’t.”

The legislation is seen as simple, elegant and unprecedented.  It would impose a tax of 100% on any bonus or contract payment received by a person or entity from a company, person or entity that has received any bailout money from the United States Government in the last 5 years.  Note the 5 year term qualifies the bailout money, but the tax can only be levied against money received after the bill goes into law, which is currently slated for one minute after midnight on March 31, 2009.

Under this example, AIG would qualify as a bailout receiving entity.  So would most of the airline industry, and the auto industry.  Any employee or contracting company that receives a bonus or contractual payment from those qualifying companies would then have to pay a tax of 100% on those funds.

Critics of the legislation claim that this legislation could enable the government to impose a 100% tax on any American or company that has received a stimulus payment from the United States government.  That is actually a very large number of Americans as stimulus payments were initially sent out under the Bush Administration multiple times.

Press Secretary Gibbs said today that the critics must belong to some evil cabal trying to discredit the finances of the United States.  “Hello, We’re richer than Fort Knox!  Hell we own Fort Knox.”  A savvy reporter did follow up asking, “Is it true that the Chinese government holds a mortgage against Fort Knox?” To Which Gibbs replied, “Phhhhht!  You don’t think we care about the Chinese do you?  I’m out of here.  Time to head back to the Oval office and work on the new green burning fuel project that we have cooking up.  We’re smoking marijuana wrapped in hundred dollar bills.”

Editors Note – Surprise we do have an editor!  The entire purpose of this website is to virally share and spread humor to help people smile at both the good and bad in life so that we can recognize truisms and truths when they beat us across the head.  Sometimes to truly experience the laughter you have to experience emotions on the other end of the spectrum as well.  There is no appreciation of hot without cold or wet without dry or soft without hard.  So with that in mind, I’d like to share a viral email of a different variety that I received today.

What would you do? You make the choice. Don’t look for a punch line, there
isn’t one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same
choice?

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves learning-disabled children,
the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be
forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated
staff, he offered a question: “When not interfered with by outside
influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son,
Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things
as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?”
The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. “I believe that when a child like Shay, physically
and mentally handicapped comes into the world, an opportunity to realize
true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people
treat that child.”

Then he told the following story:

Shay and his father had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were
playing baseball. Shay asked, “Do you think they’ll let me play?”

Shay’s father knew that most of the boys would not want someone like
Shay on their team, but the father also understood that if his son were
allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and
some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

Shay’s father approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting
much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said,
“We’re losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I
guess he can be on our team and we’ll try to put him in to bat in the ninth
inning.”

Shay struggled over to the team’s bench and, with a broad smile, put on
a team shirt. His Father watched with a small tear in his eye and warmth
in his heart. The boys saw the father’s joy at his son being accepted.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay’s team scored a few runs but was
still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove
and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was
obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from
ear to ear as his father waved to him from the stands. In the bottom of
the ninth inning, Shay’s team scored again. Now, with two outs and the
bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base and Shay was scheduled
to be next at bat.

At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win
the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat.Everyone knew that a hit
was all but impossible because Shay didn’t even know how to hold the bat
properly, much less connect with the ball.

However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that
the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay’s life,
moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make
contact. The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher
again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As
the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right
back to the pitcher.

The game would now be over. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and
could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have
been out and that would have been the end of the game.

Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman’s head,
out of reach of all team mates. Everyone from the stands and both teams
started yelling, “Shay, run to first! Run to first!” Never in
his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered
down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, “Run to second, run to second!” Catching his
breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make
it to the base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right
fielder had the ball … the smallest guy on their team who now had his
first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball
to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher’s intentions
so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman’s
head. Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him
circled the bases toward home.

All were screaming, “Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay”
Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him
by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, “Run to
third! Shay, run to third!”

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams, and the spectators, were
on their feet screaming, “Shay, run home! Run home!” Shay ran
to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand
slam and won the game for his team.

“That day”, said the father softly with tears now rolling down
his face, “the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love
and humanity into this world”.

Shay didn’t make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never
forgotten being the hero and making his father so happy, and coming home
and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

AND NOW A LITTLE FOOTNOTE TO THIS STORY: We all send thousands of jokes
through the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending
messages about life choices, people hesitate. The crude, vulgar, and often
obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion about decency
is too often suppressed in our schools and workplaces.

If you’re thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that you’re
probably sorting out the people in your address book who aren’t the “appropriate”
ones to receive this type of message. Well, the person who sent you this
believes that we all can make a difference. We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the
“natural order of things.” So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice:

Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity or do we pass up those
opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?

A wise man once said every society is judged by how it treats it’s least
fortunate amongst them.

You now have two choices:

1. Delete

2. Forward

May your day, be a Shay Day.

Editors Closing: I did not choose 1 and I did not choose 2.  Instead I chose a third path, to publish this viral story on the internet where it probably already exists.

In doing so, I have opened up new possibilities.  You can now ALSO:

3. Forward a Link to this article

4.  Blog about this article

5.  Copy this article and email it

6.  Stumble or DIgg the article

Or you might even find some entirely new and creative way to spread the concept around.  Lessons can teach us a great deal, but we do not always have to copy them to achieve great results.  I mention that because life is rarely as binary as choosing one action over another, it not only takes great humanity to be good, but it also takes great creativity.

Be creatively humane