Favourite packages for Ubuntu Intrepid

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex, the 8.10 release. I use "upgraded" in the general term because the distribution upgrade option has never worked for me – I did a clean install.

Add the Medibuntu repository.

then:

sudo apt-get install aacgain acidrip acroread acroread-plugins audacious azureus cabextract easytag ffmpeg flashplugin-nonfree gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse gtkpod-aac hardinfo inkscape libdvdcss2 libdvdread3 libdvdread3 libxine1-ffmpeg meld mozilla-acroread mozilla-mplayer mozilla-plugin-vlc mp3gain mplayer msttcorefonts network-manager-pptp openclipart-openoffice.org nfs-common nfs-kernel-server portmap rapidsvn skype smartmontools smbfs totem-xine ubuntu-restricted-extras unrar vlc vlc-plugin-esd w64codecs wine

Georgia: dump Saxby Chambliss on December 2

Saxby Chambliss, chickenhawk extraordinaire, is in a runoff to keep his Senate seat in Georgia. Despite McCain carrying Georgia 52%-47%, Chambliss was unable to ride his white coattails to victory. People were pissed at him for voting for the Wall Street Giveaway, and they punished him just enough to force him into runoff against Jim Martin.

I'm voting for Jim Martin. He's the most progressive candidate Georgia has produced in a white, heterosexual male body since Jimmy Carter. His legislative record is solid, he's smart and hard working. I've voted for him many times over the years, and I'm happy to do so again.


But most importantly, Jim Martin is not Saxby Chambliss. In 2002 Chambliss won his Senate seat by sliming his opponent Max Cleland (a veteran who lost his limbs in Vietnam) as a terrorist sympathizer. He ran hand-in-hand with Governor Sonny Perdue whose platform of a "Confederate Flag for Georgia" helped propel them both to victory. It was shameful, and I'm still ashamed. It would be redundant to call out his record on voting for the Iraq war, voting for torture, voting for spying on US citizens, voting for retroactive immunity for the telecom companies who spied on Americans, and so on.

Georgia's Secretary of State has no information about the runoff election on her department's website or its Election 2008 website, so she obviously doesn't want people to vote – after all, turnout would be bad for the GOP. It's a shameful state of affairs, but if we "other folks" vote again, we can send Chambliss packing with the man he said he was "goin' to Washington DC to work for", George W. Bush. This time we can elect Jim Martin who will work for the citizens of the State of Georgia.

Vote December 2.

Asking more from family and friends on queer rights

Following the election last Tuesday, I am very happy and hopeful about the future. Even though Proposition 8 passed in California, President Barack Obama will appoint liberal Supreme Court justices who will eventually give me full equality in the United States, maybe even in my lifetime. I have hope.

But in the meantime, it's going to be rough. Each step forward will be met with stiff opposition. Queers have long been convenient targets for political hate campaigns. This will get worse before it gets better. It already is.

Recently I've discovered that several long-time friends don't agree I should have equal rights, including the right to be married. Some of them have participated in campaigns specifically intended to take away my civil rights. By definition, these people are not my friends, and I will no longer encourage such behaviour with my continued association. These people will no longer be able to truthfully say "I have gay friends, but..." – not if they're referring to me.

I am also raising my expectations of my friends and family. In the past I simply asked friends and family to accept me and not say bad things in my presence. I didn't feel I had the right to ask them to volunteer for a cause, contribute money, or vote a certain way. Although I knew in some cases that they were opposed to my rights, I ignored it. I had very low self-esteem, and I just felt happy that people actually liked me: Internalized homophobia is powerful and insidious. Those days are past.

Now I will call on my friends and family to help advance my civil rights whenever I see fit. Since my friends and family love me as I love them, I expect they will be willing to help me. If friends and family are engaged in or supporting organizations that hold anti-gay agendas, it is my expectation that they work to improve those organizations from within. To be clear, I'm not unreasonable: I don't actually expect my friends and family to live up to my every expectation any more than I live up to theirs.

Queer issues will never be as important to most of my friends and family as they are to me. But now I'm not going to hesitate to ask for help, and if that turns out to be a problem, it will be short-lived. It will be fantastic if they choose to help, and it will be okay if they don't, but no friend will be allowed to work against my civil rights and remain my friend. This is called self-respect, and it starts now.

Obama's election: hope for an exiled gay American

Living in Canada over the past four years it's been hard to admit I'm an American. Before the 2004 election people used to commiserate, saying "what a terrible government you Americans have to deal with." After 2004, the mood got ugly: we really did elect Bush that second time. The negative opinion of the US government was transferred onto its citizens. Since 2004 whenever I have admitted to being American I've watched welcoming smiles melt into frowns, and often had to listen to a tirade about Bush and the US government. I've had to agree with them, too.

After all, I had to leave the US in order to live with my husband, and you'd better believe I've resented it bitterly. With laws that treat me as something between an abomination and a criminal, a Supreme Court prepared to permanently relegate me to second-class citizenship, and a president that seemed intent on breaking every international law, violating every civil liberty and every standard of decent conduct, I could find little to defend about the US, and even less reason to want to.

I certainly hoped Obama would win. I contributed to his campaign, I made phone calls. But I never let myself really believe, because it would just hurt too much if he lost. The Supreme Court holds the key to deciding whether I'll be a second-class citizen in the US until the day I die, and if more Scalitos had been appointed it would have dashed my hopes for two generations. I held my breath.

Today Barack Obama pulled it off, and decisively, breaking the last barrier for African-Americans (which John McCain spoke of so eloquently and movingly in his concession speech). Obama even mentioned gay people as actual Americans in his acceptance speech. Today I have hope, and I can say I'm an American without embarrassment and without (excessive) anger and resentment. I see that the dream is alive in the United States, and I see reason to believe that one day I might be able to live there again, maybe even as an equal.

A lot more has to change for this to happen. Today, people in Arizona, California, and Florida voted to ban same-sex marriage; it passed in Arizona and Florida. The vote is very close in California, but one thing is certain: voters hold farm animals in higher esteem than their fellow citizens. We have a long way to go, but when I look at how far we've come in forty-five years, I have hope.

Congratulations to President-elect Barack Obama and to the people of the United States on turning this historic page. Congratulations to African-Americans who can say that they are now full participants in the society and democracy of the United States. Congratulations and thank you to everyone who worked, donated, and voted to make this happen. Someday it will make a difference for me, too.