Spambots Are Evil

Okay, I'm not sure what to do with this blog.  I just deleted 22 spam comments from the previous post.  Blogger's anti-spam software doesn't seem to be doing a very good job.  I had to turn on comment moderation, because every new post on this blog gets a number of spam comments.  The CAPTCHA doesn't work.

I don't think that anyone really reads this blog, anyway, unless I share a post on Facebook.  I haven't really done much to promote it.  And I've been more likely to post to the St. Louis Activist Hub ever since I became a contributor there.

So maybe I should just get rid of this blog, and move the important posts to a new location.

Brief Update (Long Time, No Blog)

It's Mental Health Month.  So I will share that I have been depressed.  I have been told that I ought to write more, but I've been suffering from writer's block.

Some time ago, in fact, I was fortunate enough to conduct an interview with a major well-known DADT activist.  What have I done with that interview?  Roughly transcribed it, and not much else.  Fortunately, a fellow local activist blogger has agreed to help me get the interview into a readable form.  The news may have changed since the interview took place, but I still think it's worth putting out there.

So stay tuned for that interview.  We'll be posting it on the Activist Hub.  I'm also going to try to get my thoughts together for an official Mental Health Month post.  (ETA: Part 1 and Part 2 of my interview with Lt. Dan Choi are now online!)

In the meantime, check out this article in The Huffington Post.  Today is National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day.  Rosalynn Carter quotes the late Dr. Julius Richmond as having said, "Every day that we do not intervene with effective programs, we are losing remarkable human potential. And every child whose potential is wasted is an incredible loss to the nation."

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Act now to save ENDA!

Bad news: ENDA has been shelved. Congress is putting off voting on ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act) until the beginning of 2010 -- when election-year pressures will make it harder than ever to get this important legislation passed.

It is now more urgent than ever to call and write your senators and representatives to demand that they pass ENDA now.

(Read more at the St. Louis Activist Hub.)

March Against Violence

Last weekend at the St. Louis nightclub the Complex, three young men were approached by four men from another bar who called them "f-----s" and then attacked them because they're gay.

Also last weekend, a woman who uses a wheelchair was raped and robbed by two men near a gas station in Ladue.

In response to these vicious crimes, local activists in the LGBT community have organized a candlelight vigil, march and rally to be held Friday, Dec. 4, at 7 p.m. along Manchester Ave. Speakers at the rally will include Sen. McCaskill, the Mayor's office, Rep. Clay, the NAACP and others.

(Read more at the St. Louis Activist Hub.)

Rally at the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica

Catholic Action Network, the Holy Families Committee, and Show Me No Hate are organizing a rally to be held at the steps of the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica on Sunday, November 29.

(Read more at the St. Louis Activist Hub.)

Don't forget the "T"!

Once again, it is Transgender Day of Remembrance, the one day set aside every year to remember and honor our transgender friends whose lives have been lost due to hatred and bigotry. Anti-transgender hate crime is some of the most vicious and brutal violence out there. It's unacceptable that so many are murdered just because their bodies don't happen to match their genders.

I am lucky to have many creative and caring friends who are very dear to me. One of my friends, who happens to be trans, has expressed her appreciation that I treat her like just another person.

Receiving gratitude for not discriminating against my friend is an odd experience. I have never had a friend with, say, freckles tell me how glad she is that I treat her the same way that I treat other people.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who treat trans folks as though they were less than human. Even among LGBs, trans people are often treated with intolerance and disrespect, and it breaks my heart to see it. LGBs of all people ought to understand what it's like to be hated and excluded. Though it may be tempting, there is no excuse for passing on society's contempt for us to a group of people that is even more marginalized than we are.

My dear friend Robyn of TransHaven Missouri says that trans people are just people, like everyone else. I agree with her for the most part, but I would modify that statement: Trans people are people who, by and large, have been subjected to psychological abuse throughout their lives, and who sometimes have to hide who they are just to avoid being killed.

If you're in St. Louis, I invite you to join me this evening at 5:00 at Wash. U. for a TDOR memorial. I will stand by my trans friends to remember their dead and give thanks that my friends are still alive.


Cross-posted to St. Louis Activist Hub

Women Are Animals, Too

Feminist bloggers alerted me to an offensive billboard ad campaign by PETA. I want to make it clear that PETA does not represent all vegetarians.

As others have pointed out, there are plenty of vegetarian foods that are not good for you. Going vegetarian will not automatically make you skinny. But even if it did, that would be irrelevant here.

This billboard is not about fighting obesity; it's about degrading women and others who are overweight. If PETA wants to make a point about the potential health benefits of vegetarianism, it should do so in a non-derogatory manner. Judging humans by their body shapes does nothing to advance the welfare or rights of nonhuman animals; rather, it merely perpetuates human hatred and inequality.

I made the moral decision to "go veggie" 20 years ago when I was 7 years old. I did it because I had compassion for other sentient beings. Ads like this one lack compassion and give vegetarians a bad name.

I expect better from an organization that claims to support animal rights. PETA needs to remember that human beings are animals, too.

Is Obama giving up on the public option?

Today, the Associated Press published a story claiming that the White House appears ready to abandon the public option. Without a public option, there is no real health care reform.

(Continue reading at the St. Louis Activist Hub.)