Choose Breast Cancer Research Stamps

This blog is about ways to go about activism in everyday life. What's more everyday than stamps? Albeit, I admit, I don't use stamps nearly as much as I know the previous generation does. Everything is pretty much online these days. But I do keep some around and send a few things by regular mail, here and there, and when I do, I always use my breast cancer research stamps. This really is an incredible program. Without people having to go out of their way by much, in the first (roughly) ten years of the stamp's circulation, it raised nearly $60 million for research. That was 3 years ago. That's amazing. And it goes to fight  something 1 in 8 women will suffer from (so says Wikipedia). So please, next time you buy stamps, make that extra little effort to buy breast cancer research stamps. They're a little more than regular, but it's worth it. You don't even have to go to the post office to get them. Follow that link above and you can buy them online or over the phone. If we all work together, we can beat this.

Power in Numbers

I know, I'm falling behind in my blogging already. But it's finals week. Forgive me. Simple post: go over to the "queer the census" website by the Task Force and order your sticker. It's free, and you just stick it on your census envelope. This is important work. Knowing the details about our community in such detail that only the census can provide would be so helpful. If you want to read more about numbers and the LGBT community, I suggest popping over to the Williams Institute. They do some pretty amazing work, especially given the limited resources for counting LGBT people.

Brutal hate crimes at UCR—Have you heard about it? Because I hadn't.

Did you know that two students were recently attacked at UC Riverside, on the basis of their sexuality? I hadn't, and that's a big problem. An important element to our activism has to be proactively sharing information. To that end, I'm going to post this blog entry onto my facebook. Sharing information will help us be aware of these kinds of happenings as well as help us combat the environment that permits or encourages them. Any other ideas? I think we also need to be critical of the media which ignores stories like this. There has been a lot of important discussion about racism recently, surrounding the events at UCSD, but why have there not been discussions about queerphobia sparked by this brutal attack? Or from the vandalism of the UCD LGBT Center? Or from the silencing of protestors at UCI? And where are the discussions about the links between all of these events?

Send a note to Constance McMillen

This brave high schooler is fighting for her right to bring her girlfriend to prom, after a homophobic Mississipi school board cancelled the event just to stop her. The ACLU has picked up her case and they're gonna fight. They set up a special website so that we can send letters of support to Constance. Go here to write your note.

First Post: About my blog

I sincerely believe activism should be a part of our daily lives. While every action we take has political implications, that does not mean they are activism. What I mean by activism is some action we take to consciously achieve some political goal, particularly one of social justice. Therefore, the primary purpose of this blog is to encourage that activism. I plan to blog about important issues and include a way for readers to take action on them. I will usually try to make this something like a phone call, a brief letter, petition, or something like that, but I will also include events, protests, conferences, and whatever else I'm not thinking of right now. Of course, I expect that my musings here and there will end up intermingled in this. I'll do my best to keep it relevant, though. ; )

So, for today, the form of activism I am encouraging is creating a blog! Blogs are great ways to share information, explore ideas, and combat apathy. If you have one, congrats! Post about it in the comments and maybe I'll start reading it or put it on my blogroll. If you don't, why not? I'm sure you have plenty of great things to say.