Author: Daily Activist

An action a day keeps the fascists at bay.

How I Got Here

I am a 40 year old gay guy who recently moved from the Midwest to Portland, Oregon.  I struggle with major depressive disorder, social phobia, at least one mood disorder and a variety of other physical ailments.  My interaction with people in “real life” is very limited and I would be perfectly happy never (or rarely) leaving the apartment.  As you might imagine, this has caused employment problems (not to mention my prospects of ever finding a life partner).

I have been trying to get Social Security Disability, but have been unsuccessful thus far.  It is not an easy process.  Fortunately, I have two amazing friends who are allowing me to live with them in exchange for taking care of their dogs and some light housecleaning.  I get food stamps for food but, other than that, I have no source of income.  I had Medicaid in Indiana, where I last lived, but lost that as a result of the move.  I have applied for Oregon’s Medicaid, though, while I wait for a decision from that program, I have no medical or prescription coverage.

I share all this not because I want the world to know how lame I am, but as an explanation of why I am starting a blog.  I am hoping that, through advertising and maybe the kind donations of others, I might be able to develop a small income stream to pay for medicines and incidentals like laundry, toothpaste and deodorant.  Besides trying to change the world, my blog will hopefully also serve to show people I am trying to be a productive member of society and to help me feel as if I am doing something worthwhile.
The idea for this blog has been in my head for years.  In my fantasies, I wanted to design a site using one of the open source content management systems, and I wanted to create a one stop internet clearinghouse of all progressive action alerts from around the world wide web as well as an internet community where people could exchange ideas and information.  One of my ideas was to create a site was to use Scoop, which would allow others to also post action alerts and people could recommend the ones they like best like we do here on Booman Tribune.  In my wildest fantasies, I would have a subdomain for every state and one for international alerts, so that more localized actions could also be highlighted.

Since I can’t afford hosting fees, for the moment, I’m going to settle for trying to make a go of it using Blogger.  I won’t be able to do everything I had fantasized about doing, but I still hope that The Daily Activist will become a useful resource for active and apathetic people alike, and empower them to take daily action to affect positive changes in the world.

I will be posting an easily re-tweetable list of action alerts from my blog here, every day my mood allows, to try to promote activism and, frankly, to try to get people to visit my blog.  I’ll also try to write about tips for improving the effectiveness of activism alerts and about actions that me be a little less traditional.

Please feel free to provide me constructive feedback and send me alerts you would like me to post.  I’ll post as many as I can.  Also, if you have any suggestions about how a recluse might be able to support himself without interacting with people, please let me know.  😉

Peace and respect,
Chad (at dailyactivist dot org)
The Daily Activist
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Today’s Re-Tweetable Actions

Ensure Religiously Affiliated Hospitals Provide Emergency Abortion Care http://goo.gl/b/ezUp #abortion #aclu #religion #women #health

Stop Puppy Mills: Bring All Commercial Dog Breeders Under Federal Oversight http://goo.gl/b/Utlf  #aspca #animals #pets

Tell Obama to Stop Offshore Drilling http://goo.gl/b/hzBt #environment #oilspill #sierraclub #offshoredrilling  #energy

Tell the Obama Adminsitration to Support Battlefield Preservation http://goo.gl/b/PSJc #cwpt #civilwar #preservation

Tell Admiral Thad Allen to Count All Gulf Wildlife Casualties http://goo.gl/b/fmOW #wildlife #edf #oilspill #environment #animals

Support Equal Rights for All Families. Tell Obama to End #DOMA: http://goo.gl/b/kUcr #HRC #LGBT #marriageequality

Pass H.R.5643: Prevent Unintended Death of Wildlife, Pets and People http://goo.gl/b/QfFO  #wildlife #pets #care2

Tell Congress to Rein in Government Travel Abuses http://goo.gl/b/CufK #ACLU #travel #civilliberties #privacy

Tell CNN: Stop Spreading FOX’s Race-Baiting http://goo.gl/b/666v #colorofchange #racism #media #civilrights #politicalrights

Cross-posted at Blue Indiana.

In 1999, my best friend and sometimes roommate, Annette, was diagnosed with malignant melanoma.  Annette was in her mid to late 20’s.  At that time in her life, Annette was a social worker and was employed by a domestic violence shelter.  As part of her benefits package, she had health insurance.  Annette was able to receive treatment for her cancer, fought hard and was able to defeat the melanoma.  She was declared to be in remission.

Later, Annette decided she wanted to change careers.  Domestic violence work, and social work in general, is very emotionally difficult and there is a high “burn out” rate in the field.  Besides fighting her own cancer, Annette had spent years being a “front-line liberation worker”, as she called herself, and she was ready to move on to other things.
Annette had also been a writer, poet, artist and performer.  She decided she wanted to spend more time focusing on those skills because she found art to be invigorating as opposed to the constant struggle and drain on her energy that she was experiencing working with domestic violence survivors.  Since art doesn’t always pay well, if it pays at all, she decided to become a massage therapist.  This allowed her to feel like she was still helping people and it gave her the independence and flexibility she needed to be able to spend time pursuing her writing and art.

Because she was a cancer survivor and needed regular check ups, Annette was concerned about being without insurance.  She did some research and discovered she could be on C.O.B.R.A. for 18 months.  This allowed Annette to be covered by health insurance while she went back to school to receive her massage therapy certification.  Annette still had to pay $400 to $500 a month for this benefit.  Annette planned on purchasing her own insurance once C.O.B.R.A. ran out.

Annette did receive her certification and pursued her goals as an artist and massage therapist.  As a biased friend, I will say that she was very good at both, just as she was when she was advocating for survivors of domestic violence.

When the end of her 18 months of C.O.B.R.A. coverage came near, Annette began researching and applying for health insurance.  While doing so, she discovered that she was refused because of her pre-existing condition of being a cancer survivor.  She applied for assitance programs, but was determined to earn too much money.  The only option available to her was a high risk insurance pool that would cost her $2000 a month.  Annette became one of the uninsured.

In late 2004, Annette began experiencing symptoms of an unknown illness.  She had moved to California, at this point, while I still lived in Michigan.  Annette had learned to make her health a priority and was one of the most health conscious people I have ever known personally.  Despite this fact, Annette repeatedly discounted her symptoms and put off going to the doctor because she could not afford to and did not have insurance.  Finally, in December of 2004, Annette’s partner and I both urged her to go to a doctor when her stomach inexplicably swelled up.

Every phone conversation I received from Annette after that point, her diagnosis became more clear and more devastating.  Annette’s melanoma had returned and had spread to many of her internal organs.  

I traveled to California in February of 2005 to provide moral and physical support to Annette.  She had been estranged from her family because she was not straight and, though she had made new friends when she moved to California, I wanted to be there to provide comfort.  I also feared the worst and wanted to spend time with my friend.

The experience was dreadful.  I helped Annette apply for Medi-Cal.  The doctors refused to treat her with any chemo or any experimental treatments because she was uninsured.  We pleaded to the board of the hospital to allow her to be treated, despite not having insurance.  They refused.  Ultimately, Annette was approved for Medi-Cal only weeks before she died in March of 2005 at the age of 33.  She never received a minute of treatment other than for pain and the doctors never came clean to her to tell her she was dying.  It was only the nurses and our own common sense that finally led us to this conclusion.

It is my belief that, if Annette had insurance, she would have sought medical attention sooner and may have lived or, at least, lived longer.  There’s no way of knowing that for sure, of course, but Annette was willing to fight for her life.  I just wish she would have been allowed to.

Here’s a link to a song that a mutual friend wrote about Annette’s death.  It’s free for download.

I miss you, Annette.  I am fighting for health care reform, at least partially, on your behalf.

I did a search and didn’t find that this had been posted yet.  If it has, please let me know and I will delete this.  

Barry Welsh, the Democratic congressional candidate running against Mike Pence in Indiana’s 6th Congressional District, was attacked today by a Republican voter registration worker.  Barry was defending voter’s rights as Republicans had decided that they wouldn’t register some voters since the registration office was short-handed despite the fact that voters had registered on time.

Here’s a link to the Muncie Star Press article detailing the scuffle.

A Republican voter registration deputy faces battery charges after he tackled a newspaper reporter and hit the Democratic 6th District congressional candidate after a contentious Delaware County Election Board meeting this afternoon.

The meeting had just ended when Will Statom, GOP registration deputy and secretary of the local Republican Party, attacked Star Press reporter Nick Werner while Werner was interviewing Ball State University student Johanna Perez about hundreds of last-minute voter registrations for Democrat Barack Obama’s campaign.

Here’s the link also, to an earlier article from a writer on Blue Indiana.

That’s where Muncie becomes nearly unlike everyone else – GOP members of the Delaware County’s Election Board, faced with registrations filed on time, will not count because there are too many of them and they are short staffed. This is nothing short of voter disenfranchisement and must not be accepted!

If you can, please throw some support to Barry for literally taking one for voter’s rights.  

Barry Welsh’s web page.

Barry’s Act Blue page.

EENR Act Blue Page

For those of you who hadn’t heard or don’t remember, our mayoral election was controversial as well.  Initially, the Democratic candidate won the election by 11 votes.  The Republican’s got the election overturned in their favor by claiming that some of the absentee ballots weren’t filled out correctly.  Turns out that a Republican voter registration worker didn’t fill out his portion of the absentee ballots correctly.  My question, and I’ll post the answer here if I find out is, “Was the voter registration worker who attacked Barry Welsh the same worker who got the election overturned by not filling out the paperwork correctly?”  If so, I really think a revisit to the mayoral election is in order.  I don’t think that it would change anything at this point but it would certainly expose some corruption on the part of the local Republicans.

Here’s a link from Blue Indiana on the Muncie mayoral mess.