It’s December 25th, the Birthday of Mithra, the hero god of bravery and honor and male fellowship worshiped mainly by soldiers of the Roman Empire during the centuries when Christianity was spreading throughout the Empire, centuries that saw periodic toleration and persecution of Christians by the Roman authorities before that religion was adopted by the Emperor Constantine and made the Imperial state religion.

On this day of March in 2011, only 5 quick months after I began working for Firedoglake, we launched our membership drive. We had over 500 members join within the first week, and an additional 300 in the second week. It was an amazing heartfelt success, as people were pledging to help make Firedoglake sustainable for years.

By joining membership, whether you all know it or not, you have helped to bring on new writers, support our staff, allow for more petitions and actions to take place, and encouraged us to grow as a news source.

FIREDOGLAKE – Independent Media. Kick-Ass Activism. Join Today.

These past five decades have been really exciting, thrilling, overwhelming, full of noise and laughter and music, world tragedies and huge advances, personal sorrows and joys. Close friends have died, married, divorced, remarried, had babies, been denied the right to marry, lost their homes. I have loved well, but at times not wisely.