Once again (unfortunately) it is world AIDS day...

December 1st is World AIDS Day. It is an annual opportunity to reflect on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, and to recommit ourselves to the fight against the disease. This year there is a special focus on Women and Girls, who are especially vulnerable. Today, women represent almost half of the 38 million people who are living with HIV/AIDS . And girls in their teens and early twenties represent more than 60% of new infections among young people.

-The Global Fund to Stop AIDS (stopping AIDS before it stops the world)
http://www.vh1.com/partners/global_fund/

The HIV/AIDS epidemic is spreading at a terrifying rate. Every day, another 13,000 people become newly infected with the virus--several people each minute. The United Nations estimates that nearly 40 million people around the world are living with HIV/AIDS. Its consequences are devastating to communities: rampant poverty tramples entire regions as the virus spreads, creating widespread hunger, health crises, and economic collapse.

-The Mercy Corps
http://www.mercycorps.org/items/2216

AAAUUUUGGGHHH!!!
I am so pissed right now. Partly because 20 odd years later the HIV/AIDS epidemic is only getting to be more of a horrific problem, and partly because my last three attempts to write something about it were lost in the ether when my Compy 148 froze up and this damned BLOGGER site (which I fully realize I - a true neophyte - have in no way figured out yet) lost all my ramblings.

Suffice to say that I had much on my mind after coming across the above and other e-mail messages in my box this morning.

For instance, what exactly is wrong with those in charge (yes, I refer here mainly to our government leaders) that we - the self styled "leaders of the free world"- could allow (actually more like help to perpetuate) this awful deadly serious global health crisis? Are they really serious with all this "abstinence education" crap they are trying to cram down the throat of the worlds population while simultaneously dismantling any real truly progressive and actually useful sex/health education in our school systems? Who the hell do these people think they are? We are in need of honest, straight forward discourse, debate, research, funding, and truthfulness worldwide on this public health issue and NOW for crying out loud! (What the hell is going on around here?) My God, they are taking us back to the puritanical bad old days of our miserable, repressed fore fathers, and half of us (or so the numbers tell us) are helping to row the boat!

TAKE YOUR BLINDERS OFF FOLKS! We are headed down the wrong damn path, and if you think it is the promised land that lies awaitin' around the next bend, let me not be the last to tell you that you are most definitely sorely mistaken. (WRONG DIRECTION!)

UGH! I wish y'all could read what I had to say earlier in the day, 'cuz it was a whole lot more rational, thought out and coherent than this mess, but I'm just too full of irritating bile at this point to simmer down and make sense again for awhile.

Well...All of us with level heads and brains which still work (that means we actually think about things once and a while rather than just going through the motions all day and then spacing out in front of the tube with our mind numbing substance of choice at our side, repeating this cycle endlessly) had better keep the pressure on those who are in control of everything to keep this and other vitally important issues (like say, the environmental degradation of our planet) in the forefront of the collective mind (as we have observed, not all of us have fully evolved beyond the reptilian brain yet, so we need constant, vigilant reminders).

Really. Next time I promise some recipes and more pleasant anecdotes. For sure. Ciao!

(SIGH)