Robert Pederson Meets Mitt Romney in a Menbiz shirt

Sunday, January 21, 2007 an e-mail arrived about an article in DaddyBlogger.com The article included several pictures, like the one on the right, of activist Robert Pederson talking with Presidential candidate Mitt Romney at a rally in Battlecreek, Michigan. Apparently Pederson's "Kids Still Need Both Parents" sweat shirt caught Governor Romney's eye, and while there he spoke about related issues at least twice.

In a sense, this is a crowning achievement. Not just because Mr. Pederson was able to discuss parenting issues with a major presidential candidate; but, because the sweat shirt was designed by National Coalition of Free Men (NCFM) member, graphic artist, and the one and only Mr. Ray Blumhorst.

In December 2003 cafeshops.com/mensbiz launched with a selection of men's, father's and families advocacy products. The creators envisioned a day when Mensbiz products would reach far and wide as an inexpensive and viable method of advocacy and education. The products have been ordered from over 40 states and several countries. All proceeds have thus far been plowed back into cafeshops.com/mensbiz by way of product giveaways.

So, Pederson's meeting with Romney is a crowning achievement for cafeshops.com/mensbiz too! One of the products caught the eye of a Presidential candidate who took time to inquire of the wearer about the slogan on the shirt; all for twenty-bucks and five minutes to order one up. It may have taken four years from the opening of cafeshops.com/mensbiz, but there can be no better way to prove the point that advocacy earns positive results many ways, including being in the right place at the right time while wearing the right shirt.

It's the simple things that amaze me, as well as the inability of some people to understand how powerful simple things can be...

CRISPE AND MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY PARADE

Another warm southern California morning brought great weather for the San Diego Martin Luther King Day Parade. Is there a more appropriate parade considering all the disenfranchised parents fighting for the freedom to be with their children? The destruction of intact families would have made Dr. King weep in agony were he alive today. And, black families are the hardest hit, though he would have cried for all of us.

The Children’s Rights Initiative for Sharing Parents Equally (CRISPE) bus and crew from the California Men’s Center San Diego (CMCSD), National Coalition of Free Men (Los Angeles and San Diego Chapters), and Coalition of Parent Support (COPS) were decked out in bright purple CRISPE shirts, including several sons and daughters of the CRISPE crew.

Famous equal rights sign maker Ray Blumhorst brought some of his art work. NCFMSD member and soon to be County Supervisor John Van Door and I bundled brochures about CRISPE, NCFMSD/LA, PaternityFraudDNA, CMCSD, abused men, parental alienation, and inserted a wallet card with 16 reasons children are better off with their fathers in their lives.

Before the parade started I took 20 bottles of water and a bundles of the brochures to where San Diego Police and Boarder Patrol Officers congregated. They looked parched. The bottles of water and brochures went fast. In the meantime John V. was on the bus making more brochure packets for use in the parade.

Others were blowing up balloons, preparing our large CRISPE banner to led the bus, making sure large purple flags were ready, and serving as models for Ray B. and his camera clicking.

The kids played, ran around, scarffed down goodies ( I had two doughnuts…err, Ok, three), and generally had a good time being with their parents, including CRISPE 1.5, Larry’s son. Flo and husband Charley brought sweets and fresh fruit which were delicious. Kevin Young, NCFM Secretary/Board Member NCFM-SD, brought the doughnuts. Jay Bowden, COPS, brought his two daughters, Dawn (Larry’s good friend) brought her son, Ed G. came with daughter and daughter. CRISPE-1.5’s Godfather was there with children and friends (just in case you are curious: Larry is CRISPE-1, I’m privileged to be CRISPE-2, Craig C. is CRISPE-3, Todd Hodgen (web master par excellance) CRISPE-4, and Rich A., our PR guy, CRISPE 5).

We were in the second flight of those in the parade. By the time we were leaving the staging area the front of the parade was already returning! We got the green light and followed a really good high school marching band; so, we had great music the whole way.

Kevin Y. and John V. stretched out the large purple CRISPE banner and lead our entourage. CRISPE crew sons and daughters, Flo, CRISPE-1.5’s Godfather and children, Ed G. and his son and daughter, marched and traded off carrying Ray B’s signs. Purple balloons fastened to the front, a passel of kids waiving out back windows, Charley firmly planted in the co-pilot’s chair, bad knees and all, and Larry, CRISPE-1, maneuvered the 42’ long CRISPE bus (“coach”, actually) as the event wrapped it’s way around Petco Park (home of the Padres – a baseball team for those of you that don’t follow the “great American pastime”). Not bad, not bad at all, really. Ray B. sporting two cameras scurried from one side of the streets to another taking pictures as our menagerie turned and twisted through East Village with the parade.

Me, well, I had my apron on. Not to wash dishes or cook, which I love doing – maybe not the dishes – but I had my apron on filled with those packets of brochures John V. and I put together. I also had a bunch of CRISPE business cards and a couple hundred of the green wallet cards with the 16 reasons children need fathers in their lives. I was the hawker.

Like Ray and his picture taking I went from street side to street side like I used to peddle The Anchorage Daily Times (as in Alaska) when I was 8,9, and 10-years-old. GET YOUR ANCHORAGE DAILY TIMES…HOT OFF THE PRESS…ONLY A DIME FOR THE ANCHORAGE DAILY TIMES…ALASKA IS THE 49^TH STATE…ONLY A DIME… err, sorry I didn’t mean to date myself or get distracted. More aptly, BROCHURES, CRIPSPE BROCHURES…LEARN ABOUT THE BIG PURPLE BUS…ONLY ONE OF ITS KIND ON THE PLANET…BROCHURES…JUST FINISHED OUR FIRST NATIONAL TOUR…thank you…BROUCHURES, BUSINESS CARDS. LEARN ABOUT THE BIG PURPLE BUS…Hi, thank you very much…yes the phone numbers on the brochure…BROCHURES, BROCHURES, LEARN ABOUT THE BIG PURPLE BUS…

Well Sir, I was having so much fun Flo got jealous, took some business cards, green wallet cards, and packets of brochures and started working the crowd too. Heck, near the end of the parade Ray B. even got in the act, though it slowed don’t the click, click, click of his cameras. Dang if we didn’t pass out literally hundreds of brochures, business cards, and fatherlessness green wallet cards. And, not one snicker, dirty look, middle finger, sour twisted face, nary a bad word from the gawkers. People smiled, gave us the thumbs up, waived (probably because I so good looking), cheered us on, and a group of Army guys almost lunged at me to get our information. Yup, not bad. Not bad at all. Really.

We had a blast! Warm weather, fattening high cholesterol snacks, fresh fruit, coffee (passable, Larry makes it), good friends, parents with their children, and rousing music as the band(s) played on.

Ray B. will have pictures ready for the Internet soon. Some of those and others will be available within a few hours or days too at www.crispe.org. So you might want to check the CRISPE site soon just to see how much fun we had; and, to see the CRISPE crew play on. We made a difference. You can too. If you’ve not donated to CRISPE please do; and, if possible or already have, please do so as regularly as possible. The bus is expensive to operate. None of us get paid. Larry just keeps spending his life savings to help others save their lives. How much is that worth? It’s incalculable. CRISPE needs your help and your donation is tax deductable. So, join the CRISPE parade. The “donate” button is on our home page at www.crispe.org, as in keep parents and children together.

(posted at www.harrycrouch.blogspot.com if you would like to comment)

Take Care,

Harry Crouch
Founder/Director, California Men's Centers
President, National Coalition of Free Men San Diego (NCFM-SD)
932 C Street, Suite B
San Diego, CA 92101
619-231-1909
California Men's Center San Diego
http://www.californiamenscenters.org
Mensbiz
http://mensbiz.net/
Mensbiz Shops (great advocacy products)
http://www.cafepress.com/mensbiz
PaternityFraudDNA - find out who Dad really is, contact us for a DNA test
http://www.paternityfrauddna.com/
Children's Rights Initiative for Sharing Parents Equally
http.//www.crispe.org

RE: “One benefit event to avoid” by Greg Scharf – The Californian, January 10, 2007
http://nctimes.com/articles/2008/01/12/opinion/scharf/19_42_231_10_08.txt

Valentine Day approaches and Eve Ensler’s at it again, right between San Diego and LA in Temecula, California. Ms. Jane Fonda may be there too. Yup, there's an upcoming benefit production of the Vagina Monologues. You know the play that raises money for domestic violence shelters while promoting lesbian rape of young girls, male bashing, and other wholesome virtues every young American should learn. Hmm.. Maybe we should picket.

As I type I’m looking at a copy of the Vagina Monologues I got at a used book store last week for six bucks. Greg Scharf says in “One Benefit to Avoid” that, “It's very trendy. The printed version of the play is in its 15th printing, and indeed while there are some valuable topics ---- such as the rape camps in Bosnia and the horrors of female circumcision ---- the play turns pornographic, bordering on criminal. "The Little Coochie Snorcher That Could" celebrates the lesbian rape of a 13-year-old girl by a 24-year-old neighbor who plies her with vodka to seduce her. In prior performances, I understand, the closing line was "if it was a rape, it was a good rape." I’m still searching for a first edition to see how things have changed over the years; my used one is the 15th edition.

No matter, Ensler well describes a basis for her brand of misogynistic activism in the monologue “My Angry Vagina – My vagina’s angry. It is. It’s pissed off. My vagina’s furious and it needs to talk. It needs to talk about all this shit. It needs to talk to you. I mean, what’s the deal. An army of people out there thinking up ways to torture my poor-ass, gentle, loving vagina… Spending their days constructing psycho products and nasty ideas to undermine my pussy…”

And I thought Freud needed more meds. In a surrealistic piece of fiction I wrote several years back came:

“At least you’re not as bad off as Freud, although he didn’t have a clue either. Billed himself as some sort of liberator from religious and pathological terror. In reality, he was simply a prisoner of his refusal to accept the myriad facets of his prolific existence, sexual and otherwise. Freud was a seasoned time traveler and should have known better. A part of him was Marquis de Sade’s favorite-leathered pincushion and whipping boy. More troublesome was his life as the obscure eunuch who escorted Babylon’s Chaldean army from the siege and destruction of Jerusalem. Which somewhat explains why Freud never completely disconnected from the Jews, although he openly denied everything supernatural, or God like. Then, there were two lesser trips as an Ivory Coast slave trader, and one as a tightly curled Basque sheepherder just north of medieval Toledo, as in Spain. Freud was bled, beaten and belittled pretty badly, particularly by women and a couple of rams he confused for ewes. So, he had a sizable load on when dumped into 1853 Moravia. A load he later refused to deal with while seeking reasons for that which he never was, or would allow himself to be or become. In that round the bend, his anger popularized denial for Christ’s sake. Understand?”

The Vaginal Monologues are like that. Convoluted and confused. In Ensler’s round the bend, her anger popularized societies denial of vaginas. It’s hard to know what she did in past lives, but as a drop-out legal eagle turned dominatrix perhaps she met up with Freud somewhere in Spain or took notes for the Marquis de Sade. She certainly had a sizable load on when conjuring the Vagina Monologues, though it seams she just dumped it all on the rest of us rather than carry all that baggage by herself. Understand?

One of the problems most men have is the constant quest to return from whence they came, to a vagina. It seems Ensler’s quest is the same, she’s just wide open about it. Who knows about Jane Fonda? Maybe she found her vagina in Viet Nam; or, was that where she should have lost her American passport? Both questions are too hairy for me. While Freud may have fancied sheep in a past life, Ensler seems to have an affinity for the Ever-Ready Bunny. Neither Ensler or Fonda have a clue, batteries not included. Regardless, I wish Ensler would take her meds and shut her talking vagina.