And, furthermore...

For worse and for better, when it comes to two issues I wrote about earlier this year, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

*I wrote about how crazy it was that Jared Loughner, the alleged gunman in January’s Tuscon massacre, was being forcibly medicated so that he can stand trial and be convicted. According to recent news, things are still crazy, if not crazier.

Last week, U.S District Judge Larry Burns, who ruled in May that Loughner was mentally unfit to stand trial, extended Loughner’s treatment, including forced medication presumably, at a federal prison hospital in Missouri by four months, declaring that “measurable progress towards restoration has been made.” It was noted that, although his lawyers say that he is so disabled that he has been on suicide watch since July and continues to be psychotic despite medication, Loughner no longer smears feces on his bed, is less likely to speak in a confusing “word salad” and has expressed remorse. Loughner has also spoken of his dogs and turtles with affectation, and one expert said, “His humanity is coming back.”

Good. That means, hopefully, he can be put to death.

*Last week, I went to a talk at Pomona College by Carlos Motta, a queer artist and activist. He talked about his on-line project, http://wewhofeeldifferently.info, featuring interviews with dozens of queer activists, and I was reminded of a transgender performance artist and comedian I wrote about seeing at Pomona College in the Spring saying that while gay people want to be like everyone else (marriage, military service, etc.), queer people want everyone else to be like them.

This wasn’t just a joke, and I feel this way more and more. As Motta pointed out in his talk last week, rather than celebrate the end of don’t-ask-don’t-tell as in the gay community, queer people ignore or reject it, in that it promotes the fighting of war and the destruction of humanity.