you don't have to ask because i'm free to tell

looks like we're finally nearing the end of an amazingly unfortunate era - the ban of openly gay individuals serving in the us military. first obama called for an end to the policy in the state of the union and each day more and more influential military personnel express the need to end the archaic practice.

let's here it for progress!

no gays kissing

the super bowl's almost here and i'm getting psyched for the commercials. i like to laugh. i like to get pissed off at the incredibly misogynistic messages that are put forth in the name of selling chips and beer. but, usually i have to wait until that sunday to experience all of it. not this year though.

i just saw a story on the evening news about an ad, sponsored by focus on the family, that will showcase tim tebow and his mother. in it they will talk about how he is alive because his mother chose not to have an abortion. that's fine. really, people can say whatever they want.

but then comes news that cbs is refusing to air an ad from a gay dating site - mancrunch.com. cbs said -

"After reviewing the ad - which is entirely commercial in nature - our Standards and Practices department decided not to accept this particular spot. As always, we are open to working with the client on alternative submissions."

watch for yourself -


okay, where to start? what's offensive about this; other than i have never seen two gay men who were so unkempt?

sarah palin's right

bet you never thought that i would write those three words. but, in this instance she is - that's the instance of rahm emanuel and his penchant for saying really stupid things. the wall street journal is reporting that, in a white house meeting last august, emanuel shot down an idea as "fucking retarded." sarah palin, rightfully, jumped all over this story comparing the use of the "r" word to the use of the "n" word and pointing out that we would never stand for any public official declaring someone a "fucking n*****." palin goes so far as to call for emanuel's firing. i also agree. unfortunately, it's never going to happen because, as i wrote about last year, his boss thinks it's okay to make fun of people with disabilities. i wonder how many passes people in this administration will get on this one?

the crips and the phlegms or what happens when you put a parent in assisted living

this has been quite a week for the flipflop fed. it all started benignly enough with recovery act report reviews and that lasted all of 2 hours before my world changed dramatically. my mom called a little before 9:00 am to say that she had been taken by ambulance to the emergency room the night before because she couldn't breathe. turns out she has pneumonia and was released in the middle on the night after some breathing treatments and a vicodin. of course, i felt bad, but since there was little i could do from my cubicle in the sky, i returned to reviewing reports. i pretty much stayed focused until my mom called again - that's when it all began.

after getting up from her vicodin snooze, my mom headed downstairs to get some coffee and it was there that she found my father unresponsive and slumped at the kitchen table. i'm going to leave out most of the next four days because it's just a lot of hospital stuff, but i will tell you that his sugar count was 39 when the ambulance arrived and he was in full-blown congestive heart failure. in his time at the hospital they were able to regulate his sugar and remove the equivalent of 17 lbs. of water from his body. he clearly had not been taking his medicine.

taking in to account all that has happened over the past 9 months, we decided as a family that my dad should be discharged to assisted living. the transition has been remarkably smooth - he's eating again and participating in taking his medicine. but the best parts are really all of the funny stories from the first few days -

he's one of the younger people there and all of the old biddies call him the "young fellow."

his newest friend is a 104 year old guy who doesn't look a day over 80.

he's taking a rug hooking class.

after being told that there are two wings to the building - east and west - i asked if there were gangs. my father quickly replied -"yeah. the crips and the phlegms."

humor definitely makes an incredibly difficult situation all that much easier.

a small village just outside of ... zambia?

watching the web series "venice" and i'm still loving it, but this recent episode had a little bit of a gaffe. two characters were getting to know each other, one telling the other that she had been in the peace corps. the potential boyfriend asked "where?" to which she replied - "a little village outside of zambia?" really? they couldn't have done better research to find out that zambia's a COUNTRY and there are thousands of villages on its border.

oh well, guess it can't be perfect ...

"i don't do diabetics or tripods"

i recently decided to do my part to honor bob barker's legacy and help control the pet population. our former neighbors' cats were breeding like rabbits so i trapped all 7 and then took them to a cat rescue to have them spayed and neutered and adopted out. that's when the fun began!

(what you're about to read is absolutely true!)

i met the transporter (helps the rescue operation by ferrying animals to and fro) in the parking lot of petsmart to drop off the cats. she was right on time, but on an "emergency call" as she loudly announced when i approached the car - she told me to go back to my car and she would be with me in a moment. (i knew it was her car because i was told to be on the look out for a maroon suv covered with paws and had the license plate "pawmoble.) it was like we were doing espionage or something. finally, i got to hand over the cats. we made pleasant conversation and it was at that point that she informed me that she too was in the cat rescue business, but that she didn't do diabetics (scared of the needles) or tripods (doesn't understand how they survive on only three legs).

tonight, we were summoned to the rescue to pick up the two cats that would be going back to our former neighbors (too old to be easily adopted). i cannot even begin to describe the scene. the place was literally crawling with cats - all well fed and cared for, but way too many for my taste.

god bless these women, but that's just a wacky life's mission.

give to haiti, but do your research

all of the big outlets are picking up on a story on the smoking gun questioning the finances of yele haiti - wyclef jean's charity. seems that they're not very good accountants, nor do they get that, if you'd like to avoid scrutiny, you're better off not "giving" money to your friends' businesses.

there's no doubt that haiti needs money and that we all should give generously. but, don't just make the "hip donation." research your organization - do they have people already on the ground? how long have they been in the country? do they have experience with disaster work? are they connected to the larger relief community?

wyclef's got his money so please consider donating to these organizations that are solid, viable, and have been doing this kind of work, in haiti, with haitians and haitian partners forever -

mennonite central committee

american red cross

partners in health