Pride Season Is Here

As the weather warms and the days get longer, the rainbows begin to appear across the country. It is officially Gay Pride season. Long Beach, Ca kicked of this season with their pride celebration this weekend. "Long Beach Lesbian and Gay Pride Celebration has become one of the premiere Pride events nationwide now attracting over 80,000 participants over two days" (visitlongbeach.com). This marks Long Beach's 30th annual pride celebrations! It is fantastic they have been doing it this long, while at the same time, more and more communities are having their first pride celebrations! Countries such as Moldova and Ukraine are gearing up for their first, while Georgia had their's thwarted by violence from oppressing religious leaders. While Pride celebrations are a wonderful way to show support and solidarity in the fight for equality, it is important to remember, the world is watching. Our community has made great strides over the last few months and the last thing we need is the equality movement to be derailed by the absurd actions of few people pushing too far and shaming the rest of us. So go out there, show your pride, but be classy and respectful! Love to all.

Burly Bear Chris

Know What you Are Celebrating: Mother's Day

The traditional practice of honoring of Motherhood is rooted in antiquity. Ancient rites had strong symbolic and spiritual overtones, as societies tended to celebrate Goddesses and symbols of motherhood, rather than actual Mothers. Objects of adoration ranged from mythological female deities, to the Christian Church.

The personal, family orientation of Mothers Day is a relatively new phenomenon. Only in the past few centuries did celebrations of Motherhood develop a decidedly human focus, and only in last century did Mothers Day take on commercial overtones.

The earliest history of Mothers Day dates back to the ancient annual spring festival the Greeks dedicated to maternal goddesses. The Greeks used the occasion to honor Rhea, wife of Cronus and the mother of many deities of Greek mythology.

Ancient Romans, too, celebrated a spring festival, called Hilaria dedicated to Cybele, a mother goddess. It may be noted that ceremonies in honour of Cybele began some 250 years before Christ was born. The celebration made on the Ides of March by making offerings in the temple of Cybele lasted for three days and included parades, games and masquerades. The celebrations were notorious enough that followers of Cybele were banished from Rome.

Early Christians celebrated a Mother's Day of sorts during the festival on the fourth Sunday of Lent in honor of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Christ. In England the holiday was expanded to include all mothers. It was then called Mothering Sunday. Love to all, especially mom today.

Burly Bear Chris

Know What You Are Celebrating: Cinco de Mayo

To many Americans, Cinco de Mayo is simply, much like St Patrick's Day, a day to get drunk. But there is much more to this holiday that Coronas and Tacos. Cinco de Mayo, also known as the Anniversary of the Battle of Puebla, is a national holiday in Mexico in honor of a military victory in 1862 over the French forces of Napoleon III. When in 1861 Mexico declared a temporary moratorium on the repayment of foreign debts, English, Spanish, and French troops invaded the country. By April 1862 the English and Spanish had withdrawn, but the French, with the support of wealthy landowners, remained in an attempt to establish a monarchy under Maximilian of Austria and to curb U.S. power in North America. On May 5, 1862, a poorly equipped mestizo and Zapotec force under the command of Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza defeated French troops at the Battle of Puebla, southeast of Mexico City; about 1,000 French troops were killed. Although the fighting continued and the French were not driven out for another five years, the victory at Puebla became a symbol of Mexican resistance to foreign domination. Now the next time you pick up your beer, drink a toast in honor of those who died in the battle. Love to all.

Burly Bear Chris

Hooray For new Zealand!

Congrats to New Zealand for becoming the newest on the ever growing list of countries to legalize and recognize same sex marriages! Coming directly on the heels of Uruguay's decision last week to legalize gay marriage, New Zraland becomes lucky number 13 in the list of countries and the first in the Asia-Pacific region. These are historic times. We are seeing the very beginnings of the waves of change and evolution in humanity and perception. The change is slow. You cannot change the minds of those who have their heads buried in the sand. Slowly knowledge and acceptance will wash away the stains of ignorance and hate. No one ever said these changes would be quick, but it is exciting to see them take root. I don't know if it will be in my lifetime that prejudice and bigotry will become but a nasty snapshot of our history in this country, but I am happy to see major steps taken in the 13 others that have become the beacon of hope and the foundation to a brighter future in equality. Kudos New Zealand! Love to all.

Burly Bear Chris

Drum Roll Please!

Here it is! My 100th post! Woohoo! As I reach this momentous occasion it is now time for a statistics update!

• Posts: 100
• Page Views: 4339
• Most Popular Post: http://burlybloggingbear.blogspot.com/2013/01/bear-hug.html 
• Top Ten Countries:

 United States 2982

Germany 239

Sweden 106

United Kingdom 99

France 80

Ukraine 47

China 44

Canada 40

Australia 33

Japan 30

• Most Popular Browser : Firefox
• Most Popular Operating System: Windows

I just want to thank you all for reading and following! I couldn't have gotten this far without your support. Love to all!!

Burly Bear Chris

Happy 1 Monthiversary!

As I stated a few weeks ago, it is important to celebrate the small things too so with that, Happy Monthiversary! It has been 1 month since starting this blog and , wow, what fun it has been!. It has been amazing to me to see and watch the statistics for this blog so I thought I would share some of them with you today.

• At the time of writing this, the blog has had 1193 page views!
• I have had traffic from all over the world with the top countries being: 

  United States
  Sweden
  Germany
  Japan
  Czech Republic
  France
  Austria
  Spain
  South Korea
  Canada

• Firefox is the most popular browser with Chrome and IE tied for 2nd
• Windows is the top operating system with iPhone and Linux tied for 2nd and Macintosh a distant 4th
• "Do You Believe In Magic" has been the most popular post thus far
• The date with the most traffic has been January 9th

So where do you fall in the stats? Let me know and if you agree with the others on what your favorite post has been. So Happy Montiversary readers! Your support keeps me going. Love to all!

Burly Bear Chris

Celebrate The Little Things

Its the first Weekaversary on my blog!! Yay! Its been a great week and I think I am off to a good start. I want to thank those who have read, and commented, on my posts be it here or sent to my email. This blog is a labor of love. I have always enjoyed writing but been way too critical of myself to let others see. This blog is helping be a bit more courageous in putting myself out there for the world to see. I couldn't be more elated with the positive feedback I have received from some of you. Thank you for the support. Now I won't be celebrating every week, so don't worry, lol, but I felt this week was a huge mile marker and wanted to pay it respect. I want to thank Becky, who really encouraged me to begin this blog and even helped with the name.  I want to thank Dick, who is always the first to read a new post and share it with others. I want to thank the more then 300 people in 10 different countries who have taken the time to glance at my Chrisisms. My goal remains the same, at least one post a day, and feel the discipline is helping me from going crazy and keeps me focused. I have received messages about some posts that have really spoken to a few of you and that truly makes me happy that we were able to connect in such a way. So keeping this short and sweet, thank you! Look forward to sharing many more thoughts and stories with you! Love to all!

Burly Bear Chris