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    • What Exactly IS A Veteran?

    Local restaurants are offering free meals to veterans today -- and asking for A MILITARY ID. Somehow I don’t think, despite their good intentions, that they quite get the point of being a VETERAN. You know -- discharged, no longer active duty, don’t HAVE a military ID any longer? What, are we supposed to carry around a copy of our DD-214, and even if we did, would the restaurant accept it? Or even know what it is?

    I love that people since 9/11 are finally giving Veterans their due. Unfortunately, thanks to misplaced and overzealous patriotism pushed by the neo-con Republicans, there seems to be a selective process on some peoples’ parts when it comes to deciding WHO is a veteran.

    Oldsters that served prior to 1980? Absolutely, especially if they show a physical infirmity!

    Vietnam vets. Prior to 9/11 they used to be the national pariahs. If anything good came out of that day, it’s that people are FINALLY recognizing the contributions of that group.

    Middle East war vets -- of course they are universally loved and recognized, regardless of what side of the aisle you are from. Not that this has any affect on providing any of them with adequate medical care when they return to this country, housing or shelter, jobs, mental health care or anything else. But we love them! Why, twice a year we break out the American Flags and wave them in their honor, on Memorial Day and Veterans Day, showing them just how much we care! Meanwhile, Republican Presidential hopefuls stand by and do nothing while a serving, active duty soldier gets booed by a debate audience for asking a question that is current and relevant. Oh, yeah, most of them apologized AFTER the debate -- but I think it’s a better measure of their character on how they responded at the time than how they responded after when their handlers prompted them with prepared statements.

    Then there is the forgotten veterans that make up the vast majority of the group. The ones that nobody remembers, never get recognized, receive no benefits of any kind except maybe some educational benefits (if they are lucky) and are largely ignored by their country’s citizens -- even on Veteran’s Day. Who are these mysterious invisible people? They are…. the average veterans! For example, me and my brother.

    We didn’t happen to serve during a major war. We weren’t injured or suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. We weren’t part of a big group that earned the sympathy of the nation for whatever reason.

    Instead, we were patriots. We joined as volunteers (although, in truth, our group is largely made up of draftees from the Vietnam War era and earlier, though that group is declining through attrition) when we didn’t have to. We kept the government’s dream of an All Volunteer Force alive. In my brother’s case, he served most of his 4 year tour on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. I served just over 8 years, 5 of them on nuclear missile subs out of Bangor, WA and 3 years in the barracks at Naval Station San Diego. During that 8 years I received my Good Conduct medal, more letters of commendation that I can count, an Expert Pistol Shot medal (I volunteered for the security for and was trained by marines), multiple unit commendations, and ultimately received the Navy Achievement Medal while in San Diego for writing a computer networking program that saved the Navy millions of dollars a year.

    I am not that unusual, though. I am like so many others in that I served my country, did my time and got out to pursue a life as a civilian. I am not on disability of any type (nor is my brother), I don’t belong to the local Foreign Legion, I did not serve overseas on any major campaigns (although I did serve during the Cold War).

    So next time you see all the fuss on television about Veterans Day or Memorial Day, remember that there are a hell of a lot more “forgotten” veterans out there like me than the ones they trot out for the big fancy ceremonies. We are all patriots and love our country -- some of us are just more visible than others.

    Written on November 11th, 2011 , Life Tags: , ,
    First They Came …

    With the current debate going on regarding the proposed ban on circumcision for males under 18 in San Francisco, the famous poem First They Came… has been on my mind a lot recently.

    First they came for the communists,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

    Then they came for the trade unionists,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

    Then they came for the Jews,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

    Then they came for me
    and there was no one left to speak out for me.

    Pastor Martin Niemöller

    In 2008, there were many groups that resisted supporting the LGBT community in our fight against Proposition 8 with the argument that it had nothing to do with them. They did not support gay rights and the passage of such a proposition would have no effect at all on their communities, so why should they care? Two of these groups in particular I remember very well: the Muslims and the Jews.

    Now, in San Francisco, a group of extreme left-wing do-gooders are trying to pass a law that would ban all circumcisions for males under the age of 18 without regard for religious observances. Never mind thousands of years of religious tradition. Forget about the 1st Amendment. These people believe that they know better than everyone else, and just like the ones who think they should intrude upon our lives & bedrooms to restrict who we should marry, they think that they should have the right to restrict whether or not parents can have their boys circumcised. Just like in 2008, this will be put to a vote of the citizens, because these do-gooders believe that basic rights of minorities should be put up for a vote of the majority.

    Many supporters of this new measure in San Francisco would argue that it is necessary because boys are being needlessly mutilated, often (falsely) comparing the procedure to the so-called female circumcision barbarically performed on girls around the world, usually so they will not be able to gain any pleasure from the sex act. The problem is, you can’t compare the two. Female circumcision -- more accurately named female genital mutilation -- is the act of physically removing the external genitalia, specifically the clitoris. Experts world wide have testified again and again that there is no analogy between male and female circumcision

    There are other arguments -- pain, psychological trauma, brain damage, etc. If you really want to know, you can Google it or go check out the subject on Wikipedia, which is quite thorough and sourced. What I can tell you, however, is that both my brother and I were circumcised as infants because we were born on Air Force Base hospitals in the 60′s, when it was common practice to do it to all boys. We don’t remember anything, we did not suffer any lasting trauma, we do not have PTSD, nor have we suffered any of the other dire ailments predicted by the so-called experts quoted by the proponents of this measure.

    Oddly enough, I find that the strongest and loudest supporters of this measure appear to be women. Go figure.

    So, since the ones who now could be affected the most by this “voice of the majority” vote didn’t want to stand up for the LGBT community to fight against Prop H8, I give you a slightly updated version of First They Came… based on our recent history of Civil Rights fights and known hate group targets here in America.

    First they came for the African Americans,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a African American.

    Then they came for the gays and lesbians,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t gay or lesbian.

    Then they came for the Muslims,
    and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Muslim.

    Then they came for me
    and there was no one left to speak out for me.

    Bob Parker

     

    Written on May 26th, 2011 , Life Tags: , ,
    Catching Up Redux

    Yeah, Yeah -- I said it before. Life is catching up, things are going good so I am going to start posting on my blog regularly. Famous last words, right? Uh huh.

    Here we are, a little over a year since my last post on this blog. A whole lot of things have happened since then and, of course, not one of them has been a post on this blog. Bad Bob! So let’s try this again! A a little “Catch Up Redux” here to summarize the past year, then an opportunity to see if a new year will bring about a renewed commitment to regular blog postings.

    Professionally, things have been a bit exciting over the past year. Chris and I took the big step and incorporated our business last summer, moving from Sole Proprietorship to full on California Corporation. In a fair world, of course, this would not have been necessary because we would have been protected from the ravages of the Infernal Revenue Service simply because we are gay. However, thanks to the lovely efforts of Republicans in Congress, even though we are legally married in our home state of California we are not able to claim the same financial protections in business on our taxes that any opposite sex couple married in a quickie ceremony in Las Vegas gets. As a result, we do not qualify for any of the “husband/wife” tax breaks given to married small business owners. We do not qualify for any of the tax breaks at all, period. And people wonder why we are fighting so hard for marriage equality, or the repeal of DOMA? Read the rest of this entry »

    Written on March 5th, 2011 , Life Tags: , ,
    Catching Up

    Wow. So much has been going on in my life, I just realized that this blog -- which I had such high hopes for -- has pretty much been abandoned. Ahh, the best laid plans!

    So, before I move on to more current matters, here is a quick catch-up on what has been happening since my last post.

    Southland

    Unless you’ve been living in a cave or totally ignore television altogether, then you should already know that TNT saved Southland and it began airing on January 12th with the original episodes from NBC. They will start airing the unseen episodes on March 2nd.

    This has, in fact, been a large part of what has taken my time over the last couple of months. Since the announcement that TNT saved the show I created a new Fan website at SouthlandTvFans.com and it has taken off like a rocket! We just recently passed 5,000 visits and over 10,000 page views for the site in just over 2 months. I was also able to (surprise!) wrangle an interview with one of the biggest stars of the show, Michael Cudlitz, who plays gay cop John Cooper.

    On a personal level, the site has led to Chris and I meeting several members of the Southland cast, including Michael Cudlitz, Shawn Hatosy, Michael McGrady, Tom Everett Scott and Regina King, as well as series director/co-creator Chris Chulack. We were able to attend a special screening even in Hollywood recently where we met up with some Southland Twitter friends from San Francisco and Las Vegas, then see a sneak preview of the Season 2 premiere episode. Following the screening I have been able to setup a second interview, this time with Michael McGrady, which I am preparing to do tomorrow on the phone.

    All in all, I would say that the whole Southland project has been a major success, both personally and as a webmaster.

    Work

    What can I say -- work is work, in the world of the independent contractor. Certain people continue to frustrate the hell out of me on a daily basis with their lack of communication and organization. Their clients are even more frustrating, but what can I do? It also makes it a lot tougher that someone who I valued immensely as a co-worker, mentor and friend was let go suddenly. I sometimes wish there was a better option, but unfortunately this IS the better option, at least right now. It certainly is not what I was promised when I started with the company almost a year and a half ago, and most of the promises that were made back then have never come to fruition, but you just have to hang in there and keep plugging away. In this economy, what choice do you have?

    Cats

    What can I say about the cats. They are spoiled rotten, lazy, overfed, over-loved -- pretty much the same as always. :) One is sleeping between my legs as I type right now, so nothing new on this subject!

    Life

    I mentioned going to the Southland premiere event in Hollywood earlier in the month, which was a lot of fun. It was great to get out of the house and actually go do something! With all the weight both of us have lost, we had to go clothes shopping before the event, spending way more than we probably should have, but hey -- after losing that much weight you just have to buy new clothes, right?

    One of the friends we met at the event lives in Las Vegas, so Chris and I decided that for the 13th Anniversary of our initial meeting, we are going to do an all out fun trip there. We met on February 9th for our first date, then I cooked him a special dinner on Valentine’s Day, in 1997. So we are going to drive to Vegas on Friday, February 12th and come back on Monday, February 15th. We booked ourselves a deluxe suite at the Mandalay Bay(!) for the trip, so we have some place to finally relax and enjoy a real vacation, rather than just a Motel 6 room on a budget.

    Of course, after spending that much money for the room, there won’t be too much left over for gambling, but that’s OK with me! I’m more of a slot machine guy myself. Chris can get a little bit to play some poker (on a very strict budget, with no access to debit card for withdrawals!) and our friend is already planning out fun activities to paint the town on Fri & Sat nights with us. That should be great fun -- partying in Vegas with a native!

    That’s pretty much it -- my life for the last few months in a nutshell. Clearly, I need more of a life if it can be summarized that easily! Oh well -- maybe this year.

    Written on January 31st, 2010 , Family, Life, Work Tags: , , , ,
    True Love – A Family Story

    Anyone who knows me knows that there are two true loves in my life: my husband and my cats. After over 12 years together, there are indeed times I would be hard pressed to tell you which one is THE true love in my life.

    Just kidding! Of course Chris is my One True Love! The cats, however, are a close second. We’ve never, ever given a first thought, much less a second one, to having children so they are the closest thing we would ever have to the pitter patter of little feet running around our household.

    Not long after we first got together, we were sitting in the living room one evening and there was a knock on the door. One of the old ladies that Chris hung out with at the mailboxes asked him to step out with her. About 10 minutes later he came back in the door with a cat carrier in his hand saying “can we?” with the most gorgeous little lady I’d ever seen in my life. Little Misty was a Ragdoll, a breed famed for it’s beauty and gentle temperament, and her owner (a 93 year old woman) had just had a stroke, so the family was going to place her in a home and send Misty to the pound. We really had no choice -- and never once regretted our decision.

    We didn’t know it at the time, but Misty was 17 years old when we got her. Apparently, she didn’t know it either! She was as spry and active as a kitten. She was also one of the most loving and cuddly cats I’ve ever had, as she quickly became my cat. True to her Ragdoll heritage, she loved to be held, especially flipped over on her back with her belly rubbed, purring away with her motor going and making “happy feet”, all the while drooling like crazy. When she wasn’t sleeping on me, she was pulling her “baby seal” impersonation or finding an abandoned box to squeeze into.

    Misty was also a fighter. When she was 23, she started having trouble with her kidneys and high blood pressure, which caused her to go blind, but that never stopped her! She took her pills ever day like a champ, she got around the house just fine, she even took to the new kitten (see below) without a fuss. Sadly, we had to make one of the hardest decisions of our lives when her kidneys shut down when she was 25 years old. So Misty, one of the True Loves of my life, died at the grand age of 25 years old, in her favorite position -- lying on her back with her head cradled in my elbow having her belly rubbed, knowing that she was loved. We know that she is waiting for us now across the Rainbow Bridge.

    A couple of years after we got Misty a neighbor of ours had a litter of kittens. Yes, she broke the cardinal rule of pet ownership -- she didn’t get her cat spayed. We thought that perhaps Misty might be lonely, so we decided to go ahead and adopt one of the kittens and expand our family, so we got Delenn. (Bonus points of you know where the name is from without looking it up on Google!). Sadly, the idea of having a companion for Misty never quite worked out -- the two never really got along, so the only thing Delenn ever got from Misty was hissing, but I gained another True Love!

    Now if anyone ever tries to tell you that animals don’t have individual personalities, you send them right over to me and I’ll be more than happy to correct their misconceptions! Delenn could not be more different from Misty in attitude, temper and overall personality. Part of that, we think, is because of the environment of the household where she was raised before we got her -- there was a little boy in the home who used to pick up the kittens in a not-so-gentle manner and drag them around the place, and as a result she still to this day does not like to be picked up. She is curious, always poking into things, but very skittish.

    She also has her playful side. For example, we buy these little, inexpensive colored catnip mice from the store. She absolutely loves these things, and will spend hours grabbing them in her mouth, tossing them up in the air and chasing after them. We play “laser dot” with her, but she resists doing it because it’s beneath her dignity to chase after that little red dot (don’t you know!) until she just can’t resist the urge any longer, then runs like a bat out of hell across the room after it.

    There was only one problem when we got Delenn. Since Misty was clearly MY cat, we hoped that Delenn would identify with Chris so we would each “have” a cat. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Delenn ALSO attached to me, which led to some interesting times when both of them decided that they wanted my lap at the same time. Let’s not even think about the fights at bed time when they argued over who got what part of my legs to sleep on! Whew! On the bright side, about 9 months before Misty’s death, the two of them finally reconciled, or at least came to a truce. It took nearly 5 years to happen, but for that last 9 months we actually had some moments where we found the two of them curled up together sleeping. It literally brought tears to my eyes the first time I saw it, it was so incredibly heartwarming.

     

    Knowing that Misty’s end was coming soon, we decided in August of 2006 that we wanted to get another cat to be a companion for Delenn (and us) so she wouldn’t be left alone after Misty died. After all, Delenn had never been completely alone, going from her litter mates to living with us and Misty. So we visited the SPCA LA adoption center in the Valley one weekend “just to look” (ha ha) and there was this little black kitten in the cage with his sisters, sitting in the litter box doing his best to look lonely and pathetic. When we stopped at the cage, he stuck his little paw up and made the teensiest little “meow” sound and gave us a pitiful “I’m so cute” look. Of course we had to check him out and hold him! I gave him the “roll on your back in my arm and rub the belly” test -- and he fell asleep while purring. Instant love! Needless to say, we left the store with him, and Cole aka CoCo became the newest member of our family.

    Cole was just what the Doctor ordered! First, Cole is Chris’ cat! Yes, he loves me and I love him -- no question about that. But when it comes down to it, Chris is Cole’s “favorite Daddy”, which is absolutely perfect. Honestly, I think he was starting to get a bit of a complex about the whole situation. :) Second, Cole and Delenn get along so well you would think that she was his mother. It tickles my heart to watch the two of them together, even now. Whether they are giving each other baths, running around the house playing tag, or curled up together taking a nap, these two cats were made for each other. We couldn’t have asked for a better pairing.

    Cole himself is quite a character! First of all, he is a BIG cat! Delenn is rather petite, weighing in around 9-10 pounds, but Cole comes in about 13-15 pounds depending on the scale! I know that’s not record breaking or anything, but side-by-side with Delenn, he’s big. When he’s walking across your head -- or stomach -- at 2 o’clock in the morning he’s humongous! Second, for only having been around her for about 3 months, he somehow seems to have picked up a number of personality traits from Misty, to the point where we joke about him being possessed by her ghost sometimes. He acts like her, he imitates her “baby seal” impersonation, all the little things that she used to do -- it’s uncanny!

    The strangest thing of all about Cole? He thinks he’s a dog! No kidding -- the cat plays fetch! We didn’t teach him, at least as far as we can remember. One day he was playing with one of those plastic rings that they use to seal milk jugs and we took it away from him, then tossed it over to the trash can. Of course we missed (athletically skilled, we aren’t) and he went over and picked it up in his mouth, brought it back to us, then sat there waiting for us. So we said “what the heck”, threw it again, he chased after it and brought it back. Thus, the game of “play fetch” with the cat was born! Now we have a side table drawer full of “rings” and all we have to do is put a hand anywhere near that drawer and he’s immediately ready to play. One of these days I’m going to get the video camera out and we’re going to upload a video of him playing, just to prove to people that he really does “play fetch”.

    So that’s our happy family now, a household of True Love: Bob, Chris, Delenn and CoCo. The bed gets a bit crowded at night sometimes, but there is no lack of love, cuddles, purrs or catnip!

    p.s. If you’d like to see more pictures of the Furry Threesome, check out the “Cats” set on my Flickr Photostream or visit their website at http://www.bobandchrispets.com.

    Written on October 4th, 2009 , Cats, Family, Life Tags: , ,

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