The Republic of T.

I tried to do it last year, and just couldn’t. Now Shutdown Day is upon us again.

Shutdown Day is a Global Internet Experiment whose purpose is to get people to think about how their lives have changed with the increasing use of the home computer, and whether or not any good things are being lost because of this.

The idea of Shutdown Day project is simple – just shutdown your computer for one whole day of the year and involve yourself in some other activities: outdoors, nature, sports, fun stuff with friends and family – whatever, just to remind yourself that there still exists a world outside your monitor screen.

Michael Taylor, the original partner in the idea of Shutdown Day, says

“I certainly could not and would not want to live without my computer. However, I am often drawn into spending hours chatting on MSN, simply because my friends are online instead of socialising face to face. I am often too busy to cook a proper dinner, because I want to see the latest news on digg.com or the latest YouTube video. I know parents who are so addicted to the computer that they spend little time with their children, and I also know children who do not spend time with their parents because they are always using the computer. We are not preaching to anyone to turn off their computers. We are just suggesting that people might like to take part in this experiment, and see what happens.”

Well.

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It’s been a while since I asked this question, but it seems like as good a time as any, since my own answer has changed since the last time.

Are you a blogger? If so, how do you do it? What tools do you use to read and keep track of blogs? What tools do you use to create and post content to your blog?

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I’m sometimes amazed at the search queries that lead people to this blog. I don’t know that this will do anything for my Google ranking, but apparently this blog is among the top results if you Google “gay vegetarian mac user.”

Hey, I’ll take what I can get.

A new feature I’m toying with maybe adding. Just for fun.

There are so many stories I come across in my daily reading of news and blogs that inspire the question, “What the fuck is wrong with people?” that I’ve started thinking it might make a good idea for a comic strip.

OK. So, I’ll admit I’ve always wished I could draw, and I always thought it would be cool to be a cartoonist. However, my sister was blessed with the visual arts talent in our family. (She’s always been a talented artist.) I, on the other hand, never made it past drawing stick people in the margins of my notebooks in school.

I’ve been toying with various comic strip tools online, though, and I think I may have found a way around my inability to draw.

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Back to blogging meta, I guess. I don’t know what’s going on up there at the pinnacle of blogging. From where I sit, it’s impossible to see beyond the clouds to the peak. But something’s going on. First there was blog related stress and heart attacks at GigaOm. Now the New York Times is again covering the travails of top tier bloggers, this time with an article suggesting that Gawker may have “jumped the shark.”

“THE ideal Gawker item,” Nick Denton, the owner of Gawker Media, wrote in an instant message last month to a prospective hire, “is something triggered by a quote at a party, or an incident, or a story somewhere else and serves to expose hypocrisy, or turn conventional wisdom on its head.

“And it’s 100 words long.

“200 max.

“Any good idea can be expressed at that length.”

A few weeks later on Gawker.com, the news-media gossip Web site that is the flagship of Mr. Denton’s online publishing empire, he spent 339 words explaining changes at the site, including his decision to take over as managing editor after three senior bloggers had quit, and the hiring of Richard Morgan to cover television.

One day later, on Jan. 3, Mr. Morgan also quit. In an interview, he said that Mr. Denton, in his fixation with attracting new readers, was letting the site degenerate.

The next day a new Gawker blogger assigned to cover pop culture posted 406 words summarizing some of the most popular scatological sex videos on the Web, with links.

Within minutes, some longtime readers were posting comments asking, in a reference to the cliché that has come to mean something or someone has lost touch with its roots and has no more cultural relevance, whether Gawker had jumped the shark.

100 words? Well, that just one more reason I’ll never write for Gawker. But if you read beyond the first 200 words the article gets really interesting when it suggests that Gawker slipped into “Perez Hilton mode” and thus began it’s decline.

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Wanna build your own Gitmo — complete with waterboarding — in your basement? The Guantanamo Bay manual, thanks to the magic of the internets, is now available for what’s probably a limited time only.

Get it while it’s hot, because the powers that be might want it yanked down soon.Technorati Tags: guantanamo gay, gitmo, torture, human rights, war on terror

Today is a big day for the hate crimes act, according to Congressional Quarterly.

The conference report on the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill (HR 1585) is expected to be released as early as Tuesday, and members of the Armed Services panels hope to clear the measure before heading home for the Thanksgiving Day recess.

That means the hate crimes act will be heading for the president’s desk soon. So, it seemed like a good time to post a list of all the cases I’ve researched and written up thus far for the LGBT Hate Crimes Project.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I’m researching and writing up cases of anti-trans or anti-trans-related hate crimes between now and the Transgender Day of Remembrance. I’ll have two new cases up in the next couple of days. But for now, here’s a full list of the cases compiled thus far, by last name of victims where known and/or appropriate.

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It’s been a strange week for me and presidential campaigns. First, I get a phone call from the Hillary Clinton campaign about a volunteer meeting. Me? Volunteer for Hillary? When did I sign up for that? And why? I couldn’t have been drunk, because I haven’t had a drink in 15 years or more. And I tend to waive off those people with the clipboards.

I’m still trying to figure that one out when I get an email that Barrack Obama wants to be my friend n some social network. And I’m not talking about Facebook. That I can understand. But Barrack Obama with a profile on a gay social nework? What are his evangelist friends gonna say about this? See, a while back I registered with GLEE, a gay social network. Well, not just gay. GLEE stands for “Gay, Lesbian & Everyone Else.” And I guess that’s where Barrack comes in.

I was fortunate to be able to grow up seeing America from varied viewpoints. My childhood was spent in Hawaii and Indonesia. After college I worked as a community organizer on the South side of Chicago focusing on improving living conditions in poor neighborhoods.

I came to understand that to truly solve the problems facing our communities, it would take a change in our laws and our politics. I ran and served for seven years in the Illinois state Senate, where I fought for expanding children’s health care, providing tax cuts for the working poor and enacting welfare reform. In 2004, I was elected to the U.S. Senate, where I have worked to pass laws securing dangerous weapons and making government more accountable. I have also opposed the Iraq war from the start, and believe that we need to bring our troops home by March of 2008 so we can refocus on the wider struggle against terrorism.

So, which is more surprising? That Obama has a profile on a gay social network? Or what that profile doesn’t say?

Technorati Tags: 2008 election, current events, gay marriage, obama, politics, web

The Electronic Village has a post listing the top 10 black bloggers, according to Technorati, and this blog is on it.

While floating through the blogosphere I came across a listing of the 50 most influential bloggers. I noted that there were no bloggers of African descent on the list. Of course, there are millions of bloggers out there so I understand why Black bloggers might be overlooked. But, the point of creating The AfroSpear was so that we can learn from one another. As such, I propose to publish a monthly list of the Top Ten Black Bloggers.

The only qualification is that the blogger needs to be of African descent. The blogger does not have to be a member of The AfroSpear or the Afrosphere Bloggers Association. Of course, we invite all Black bloggers to join either (or both) of those fledging organizations. These Top Ten Black Bloggers are influential role models for the rest of us out here in the afrosphere.

Yeah, i saw that list of the 50 most influential bloggers and, just as I suspected, I wasn’t on it. And I don’t think I made the cut for D.C.’s new young blogging elite either. I have been called many things and will be called many more, but influential and elite haven’t often been among them.

Technorati Tags: blogs, current events, politics, race

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Not who’s targeted for a hate crime because of their (real or perceived) sexual orientation ends up being murdered. Some survive, but their lives are never the same. Like Dwan Prince. His was one of the stories I wanted to write about when I started this project. I’d blogged about it before and always wanted to cover it in more detail.

What struck me as I was reading about how Dwan Prince was attacked by three men — right outside of his apartment building, who beat, stomped, and kicked him while shouting anti-gay epithets (and, according to some witnesses, his name), and how one attacker returned to deliver one final kick to Prince’s face, as lay dazed and bleeding — was what sparked it all. Unlike what happened to Richie Philips or Jason Gage, there were no alleged (and allegedly unwelcome) sexual advances behind closed doors. Like Roberto Duncanson, what happened between Prince and his attacker happened in the street. And what happened to Dwan Prince happened in the street.

And what sparked the beating that would leave Dwan Prince with lifelong consequences? A look and a flirtatious remark. Like Roberto Duncanson, Prince’s main offense was just looking at his attacker. (I’m reminded of the response I used to hear in kindergarden, “How would you know he’s looking at you unless you’re looking at him?”) Like Duncanson’s attacker, Prince’s asked “What the fuck are you looking at?” And, according to witnesses, Prince responded with a flirtatious joke. (Just like Kevin Aviance’s attackers claimed he provoked a beating by calling one of them “sweetie.”)

For that, Dwan Prince’s life was unalterably changed, and very nearly taken from him.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, hate crimes, homophobia, politics

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After some consideration, and discussions, I’ve come to the decision that I will add no further articles on LGBT hate crime victims to Wikipedia. When I started the Hate Crimes on Wikipedia project, it was because I’d noticed that there were several anti-LGBT hate crimes I knew, and had written about, of that were not documented on Wikipedia for some reason. I thought that by adding them to Wikipedia, I could bring more exposure to a broader spectrum LGBT people who have been the targets of hate crimes.

I have learned, however, that the notability guidelines on Wikipedia, and some of the community members who enforce them, make it almost impossible to show to bring exposure to hate crimes that happened long ago and/or not received widespread coverage. And that means that it is difficult to being exposure to more diverse LGBT hate crime victims on Wikipedia, if their stories are not recent, having received widespread coverage, or otherwise launched major protests or new legislation. As subjective as those guidelines sound, they are reasons I was given as objections to some of the articles I posted.

So, rather than fight that battle, I’ve decided to launch a new site: the LGBT Hate Crimes Project. I wanted to keep it simple, so that the focus will be on the stories. It’s a wiki that I spent much of yesterday and today setting up, and it’s where the new stories I will research and write up will be housed. I’m also in the process of copying the articles I wrote for Wikipedia onto this new site. I’m also in the process of rounding up support, as it looks like it will be an ongoing project.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, hate crimes, homophobia, politics, technology, wikipedia

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The Hate Crimes on Wikipedia project continues. I’ve got more cases to post this week, as time allows. Right now it looks like another one made the front page of Wikipedia’s “Did you know…” section. First it was the article on Nizah Morris. This time it’s the article on Nireah Johnson. (Second from the bottom in the clip below.)

Want to support the project to document anti-LGBT hate crimes on Wikipedia? Hit the PayPal button on the sidebar. All contributions will go to access news archives in order to better document hate crime stories.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, gay bashing, gay rights, homophobia, politics, web, wikipedia

After this test, I might just order one of those t-shirts.

You Are 100% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn’t mean you’re a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It’s a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

No big surprise there. I mean, Duh! Who wouldn’t “Agree” or “Strongly Agree” with those questions? OK, OK. I know who. I just don’t like to think about them too much.

Technorati Tags: feminism, gender, memes, politics, web

Actually, more like complete renovation. I put off upgrading to the newest version of WordPress for as long as I could. Mostly because I finally had the blog looking and working pretty much the way I wanted it, and because I knew that upgrading would break my theme and any number of plugins, etc. But time and technology marches on, and sooner or later you realize it’s dragging you along behind it whether you like it or not.

So, when my host upgraded to what I think was new version of PHP, and my old version of WordPress and the WP-Cache plugin started acting loopy, I took a deep breath and started preparing to upgrade. My one problem was finding a theme that would be compatible with the new version of WordPress, and allow me to preserve at least some of the great look and feel Lauren created for the blog a while back.

Fortunately, I’d bookmarked a post from Mashable about 30 3-column WordPress themes. That’s where I found Mandingo, a terrific theme that let me incorporate the banner and background Lauren created. Not only is it a great theme, but according to the Showcase page now have something in common with Björk.

The site is pretty much the same, but there is one new addition. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to keep some posts from getting buried in the 1,000+ posts on this blog. (And that’s not counting the XXXX posts in the October 2003 – June 2006 archives.) Right now the Articles page is my attempt to give some of those posts a chance to see the light of day. (Thanks to the great work of Alex King, BTW.) That page will be updated as I unearth more posts to feature there. I’m also working on a way to showcase series of posts, but haven’t been successful with that yet.

I’ve also added a PayPal button to the sidebar. For now, donations will go to support research for the Hate Crimes on Wikipedia project, and will be used to pay for access to newspaper archives.

Hope folks like the new look, etc. Feedback is appreciated!

Technorati Tags: wordpress

That’s what the killer in this case said he was doing when he shot Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder — a gay couple in Redding California — to death. He was “obeying God’s law,” which according to him says:

Benjamin Matthew Williams, the 31-year-old white supremacist accused of murdering a gay couple outside this Northern California town in July, is now admitting that he slipped into the men’s home while they were sleeping and shot them to death in their bed.

He did it, he said, because they were gay and God told him to.

When asked if he had killed the pair, Williams answered, “Absolutely.”

…”The defense that he has is a religious defense, and he is saying the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong and they should be killed and the blood is on their heads,” O’Connor said. “But as a practical matter I don’t think the judge is going to allow that defense, as opposed to one using the laws of the state of California.”

Of course, it’s not that simple. It never is. That’s one thing I’ve discovered as I continue this project of documenting anti-LGBT hate crimes on Wikipedia. There are almost always other elements at play, which fall into place to unleash that “uncontrollable rage” that seems to be a theme in so many of these cases; sometimes just rage that LGBT people happen to exist. But sometimes an attackers rage at himself is simply projected outward. This looks like one of those cases.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, hate crimes, politics, web, wikipedia

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I’d heard earlier that it was a possibility, and last night I got confirmation that my Wikipedia article on Niza Morris — part of the Hate Crimes on Wikipedia project — was included in the “Did you know…” section on Wikipedia’s front page. (Second from the bottom.) I’m not sure how long it will be up, so I grabbed a snapshot.

Definitely more to come. Unfortunately, it will be a while before I run out. In fact, another article about a lesbian couple will go up today.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, current events, gay bashing, homophobia, politics, wikipedia

I was bruised and battered I couldn’t tell what I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself
I saw my reflection in a window I didn’t know my own face
oh brother are you gonna leave me wastin’ away
on the streets of Philadelphia

~ Bruce Springsteen, “Philadelphia”

I kept hearing those lyrics over the last couple of days as I felt like I was walking the streets of Philadelphia with Nizah Morris. Just a short distance, really, from Juniper and Chancellor streets to 16th and Walnut streets, before she disappeared into a few lost minutes that nobody who knows anything about is talking about. And at the end of that short journey — half a mile, just to end up three miles from home — she was gone, and nobody seemed to know why. And after two days, I don’t know why myself. But I do know that her story illustrates one of the reasons why one aspect of the hate crimes bill is needed.

Given how local law enforcement handled Nizah’s death, I can only imagine that the possibility of federal involvement or intervention might have lifted the haze that seems to cover the details of this case: police logs that don’t match their own accounts, police reports that were never filed; Morris lying unidentified in the hospital for 64 hours, when at least one of the three police involved knew her from past arrests, and one witness identified her to one of the officers involved; a detective who informs Morris’ mother of her death with by saying “He’s dead”; a medical examiner rules Morris’ death a homicide, but the police department assesses it as accidental until the second opinion they sought confirms the M.E.’s findings; a recording of a 911 call (one of two) edited down to 6 minutes when transmissions between the police officers involved really went on for 49 minutes; still no transcript of the call released; and an investigation that leads precisely nowhere.

But don’t take it from me. Talk a walk with Nizah for yourself.

Technorati Tags: culture, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, gender, hate crimes, homophobia, politics

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I knew it. So, last week I griped about the whole working-at-home-vs.-working-around-people thing. And during my travels in search of wireless internet access and the proximity of other people, I’d started to develop a sneaking suspicion that — with more and more people working from locations other than an office — some institutions that offer the lure of wifi also wield a stick to make sure the “road warriors” among us don’t adopt their space as a semi-permanent office space.

Maybe I’m being paranoid. I mean, there are the obvious, reasonable measures that most places take, like logging you off their wifi after you’ve been there a certain amount of time (that’s if it’s free wifi). I can understand wanting to open up a table for a new paying customer when I finished my latte/frappucino/chai tea a couple of hours ago. But I swear there are some more subtle strategies employed. Like the lack of electrical outlets. And electrical outlet is an invitation for someone like me to sit and stay a while, after all. And if there is an outlet available, more than half the time the seat or table nearest it is occupied by someone who’s not using the outlet.

That’s not a problem. After all, people can sit where they want. But I swear there have been times when I’ve seen people sit by the outlets all day. They’re there when I make my first pass, and they’re still there if I pass by a few hours later. I’d swear that the store owners are paying people to sit those outlets, but I know if doesn’t make much sense. But they are taking out the comfy chairs.

Technorati Tags: books, business, culture, current events, life, work, web

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One of the things I hadn’t taken into consideration upon launching the project to record anti-LGBT hate crimes on Wikipedia was that it would mean living with each of these stories as I research them and try to gather as many fact as possible. (Communicating them as dispassionately as possible was another challenge.) It means reading the details of the crimes over and over again, learning about the lives victims and perpetrators along the way, to the point where their lives collide, watching that collision over and over again, and then spending more time shifting through the wreckage.

That’s what it felt like as I put together the next two stories. Once again, it wasn’t until I finished both that I realized the connection between them. Arthur “J.R.” Warren and Paul Broussard were both killed on July 4th, ten years apart. Both were killed by multiple attackers; strangers in Broussard’s case, and acquaintances in Warren’s case. Both suffered brutal beatings — including being kicked with steel-toed boots — that ended their lives. Warren pleaded with his killers to take him home. Broussard raised one hand as lay bleeding on the sidewalk, as if pleading with his killers for help or mercy even as they rifled his pockets for souvenirs. Broussard’s killers drove away cheering and high-fiving each other as he lay dying. Warren’s killers were watching Independence Day fireworks with their families the same day that Warren’s body was found. Both deaths sparked protests and vigils.

In the debate over the current hate crimes bill, posted in full at Box Turtle Bulletin, maybe the opposition can answer some questions regarding stories like Warren’s and Broussard’s.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, gay rights, hate crimes, politics, religion, wikipedia

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So the Senate vote on hate crimes has been put on hold after Senate Majority leader Harry Reid withdrew the defense authorization bill to which the hate crimes amendment was going to be added, after the Democrats failed to break a Republican filibuster over another amendment calling for a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. That’s disappointing for a number of reasons, mainly because now the Dems will have to find another vehicle for the amendment, and I have my doubts they can find one that the president will be as pressured to sign as a defense authorization.

For further background, HRC’s Back Story blog links to a history of hate crimes legislation related to LGBT people, Box Turtle Bulletin posts the text of the bill and details religious right propaganda against it, Cross and Flame over at Street Prophets debunked that propaganda a while back, and yours truly tried to explain how hate crimes legislation gives state law enforcement more resources and empowers federal government to act when state officials can’t or won’t. Also, the House introduced a resolution mourning David Ritcheson’s death, which I mentioned earlier.

In the meantime, I’ve decided to proceed with a project I had in mind before I heard the news that there would be not vote on hate crimes this week and probably not until later this year. Earlier thisi week I posted a round-up of recent anti-gay hate crimes, similar to a longer hate crimes round-up I posted in May. After I published that earlier post in May, a commenter suggested that I make sure all the cases I covered in my post were also updated on Wikipedia. I’ve been pretty regular user of Wikipedia as a reference, but had never contributed more than a few edits to correct an error or two, until now.

My experience has always been that our stories are one of the most powerful asset we have in striving for justice. People understand stories about real people just like themselves. They can imagine those stories happening to them of to people they love. And even if they aren’t sure how they feel about homosexuality or same-sex marriage, when they hear stories of injustice and violence against us and our families, it offends their sense of morality. Whatever else they’re not sure of, they know “that’s not right.” And that’s the first step towards convincing them to help us do something about it.

So, if adding a few stories to Wikipedia can help, I’m wiling to make the effort, and to research and add other stories that people send me concerning hate crimes against LGBT people.

Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay, gay bashing, gay rights, hate crimes, homophobia, politics, web, wikipedia

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