From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=1450">Lolly Gaggin</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who penned 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,' commits suicide<BR>
<BR>
(why is this not a surprise? - good writer, screwed up human being, not a role model for anyone or anything... rest in peace)
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From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=1470">iwan pritchard</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

This is NOT about "Politics..."<BR>
<BR>
Deadly Behavior: HIV 'supervirus' must be seen as a warning<BR>
Dallas Morning News<BR>
February 20, 2005 <BR>
<BR>
In a scathing screed delivered last November, AIDS patient and ACT-UP founder Larry Kramer roared, "One of these days the miraculous drugs we have to keep us alive are going to stop working ... What are we going to do when they don't work any longer?" <BR>
<BR>
We may be about to find out. Health officials in New York City have identified what they suspect is a drug-resistant "supervirus" form of HIV, one that can take the patient from infection to full-blown AIDS in only three months. The supervirus was discovered in an unidentified male patient who admits to unprotected sex with hundreds of men, often while high on crystal methamphetamine, which has become popular as a sex enhancer. <BR>
<BR>
It's too early to know whether the mutation will spread, but AIDS activists fear the worst. The New York Times reports that some gay leaders are considering radical steps to fight risky sexual behavior in the gay community. Good. Silence or timidity could cost lives. <BR>
<BR>
AIDS experts have warned for some time that a reckless gay subculture, in which carriers of different strains of the virus have frequent unprotected sex, would eventually produce a drug-resistant HIV mutation. If that has happened, we must face the stark possibility that 25 years of progress in controlling AIDS could be in jeopardy. There are political risks as well: Those who peddle homophobia will surely exploit any evidence that gay men themselves are prolonging the epidemic through suicidal acts. <BR>
<BR>
For too long, well-meaning people, both gay and straight, have been reluctant to denounce this shadowy underside of the AIDS epidemic because of what New York City's health commissioner referred to last week as "the population and political context in which it arose." Yet who is served by such reticence? Deadly behavior is deadly behavior – whether sharing needles or indulging in unprotected sex. If we care about someone, we have an obligation to call them on it. <BR>
<BR>
Begging his peers to grasp the seriousness of the threat – even before the revelation of this new HIV strain – Mr. Kramer told them, "You cannot continue to allow yourselves and each other to act and live like this!" <BR>
<BR>
He's right. Now is not the time for the band to play on, again. <BR>
<BR>
<a href="http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/022105dnediaidsnyc.8de9a.html">http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/022105dnediaidsnyc.8de9a.html</a><BR>
---------------------------------<BR>
<BR>
Killers at Large<BR>
AIDS carriers and their victims.<BR>
William F. Buckley, Jr. in National Review Online<BR>
<BR>
Tony Venenum (we’ll call him), 26, reasons that he has always taken risks in life. He was raised by a single parent and made his way in a neighborhood where toughness was a requirement for survival. He discovered, in his teens, that he had solace in male companionship, and before he was 20, had been seduced, and had lived then with Guido, an older man. Both had jobs in establishments that required conformist behavior — Tony even wore a jacket and tie to work, but then Guido took sick and the diagnosis was AIDS. But the retrovirus inhibitor kept him alive and active, but after two years the poison prevailed, leaving Tony both bereft and desperate for relief, which he found in crystal meth. This cheered him greatly but also increased his craving for sex, which he engaged in diligently, finding on the Internet’s manhunt.net an abundant supply of gay men seeking the same relief and the same sensations that Tony had become accustomed to. But then early in June he recognized symptoms like those that had gradually disabled Guido. He didn’t consult a doctor — he had no trouble in getting access to the inhibitor drug, and the crystal meth, for a sometime street kid, was easy to find. So were more partners, to whom he didn’t confide his illness. So that when the public health official came by and told him he wanted information, and if necessary could get a warrant, Tony decided fatalistically to cooperate.<BR>
<BR>
The health office wanted the names and addresses of everyone Tony had had sex with, a question that made Tony laugh through his hoarse coughing. How could he possibly reconstruct such a list? A few guys, sure, but all of them? Could the enquirer reconstruct the name of every girl he had winked at in the last three years? The New York Times reports, in two stories on the new and virulent strain of AIDS, that those who seek to do something to arrest the virus are driven to “more aggressive” measures than in the past. Charles Kaiser, the historian and author of The Gay Metropolis, makes the basic point in words of one syllable. “Gay men should not have the right to spread a debilitating and often fatal disease. A person who is HIV-positive has no more right to unprotected intercourse than he has the right to put a bullet through another person’s head.”<BR>
<BR>
Public heath officials are considering measures which, 20 years ago, would have been though fascistic interventions in human rights. There is thought of infiltrating gay sites, particularly those on the Internet. What, having identified such sites, will they then do? Interpose a message about the danger of unprotected sex? Collect names and email addresses, and send individual warnings to prospective victims? Such measures are not easily composed: “Dear Sir: You have recently kept company with Tony Venenum. Tony has a new and dangerous strain of AIDS and you may have contracted it. You should report to a doctor and you must not engage in unprotected sex because in doing so you may be committing murder.” The boundaries of the new campaign, let alone the niceties, haven’t been resolved upon, but not much thought is being given to concerns of privacy. Murderers need to be stopped, and if this means opening their mail, well — such things happen and you can take comfort that you may be saving a life.<BR>
<BR>
The objective is to identify the carrier, and to warn his victim. Someone, 20 years ago, suggested a discreet tattoo the site of which would alert the prospective partner to the danger of proceeding as had been planned. But the author of the idea was treated as though he had been schooled in Buchenwald, and the idea was not widely considered, but maybe it is up now for reconsideration.<BR>

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From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=268">Misti</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

I for one am sorry to hear about Hunter S. Thompson. He was a great fucking writer. He had balls. Balls seem to be in short supply these days.<BR>
<BR>
I have Abba's Greatest Hits cd, mostly for "Fernando." I didn't know they had so many hits until I saw "Mama Mia!" in Las Vegas a couple of years ago.<BR>
<BR>
Last August I sold almost my entire cd collection 'cause I was hurting for cash. I have a wish list at amazon.com. So lately I've been buying cds like crazy. I bought U2's first cd for Michael for Valentine's Day. Yesterday I bought "London Calling." Other recent purchases:"Bricks Are Heavy" by L7, "OK Computer" by Radiohead, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Greatest Hits, "Fontanelle" by Babes in Toyland, "Fever in Fever Out" by Luscious Jackson, "Fever To Tell" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Janis Joplin's Greatest Hits. 
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From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=8">Ali</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

What am I listening to?  Hmmm....<BR>
<BR>
Damien Rice...he has such a profoundly haunting voice...<BR>
<BR>
U2...love "Sometimes You Can't Make it On Your Own"<BR>
<BR>
Love and dreaming hearts, Ali
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From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=254">chris</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

"Logic Will Break Your Heart" by the Stills (a little-known, kick-ass band from Canada) and "The Contino Sessions" by Death in Vegas. Shortly after my divorce I sold every last one of my Lawrence Welk CDs and managed to return to my senses. Divorce has a tendency to do that.
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From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=10">Galadrial</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

Sorry...but anyone who thinks AIDS or anything about it isn't "Political" is a horse's ass.<BR>
<BR>
The disease was embraced by the Right as a scourge from God on the "sinners". It was only when "nice" people started getting it that we even THOUGHT of studying it.<BR>
<BR>
Never in the course of human history was any disease quite so political---unless you count Union soldiers gifting the Indians with blankets from victims of Small Pox.
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From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=1450">Lolly Gaggin</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

There are aspects of "AIDS" that are political, but the topic transcends politics.  That was the point.  And rather banish the posting sto the ignored "Politics" board, I was simply pointing out that it wasn't merely a political posting.  At all.<BR>
<BR>
You clearly are some radical left-y that has to make the AIDS issue about "right wing" politics.  That is just plain stupid.  narrowminded and stupid.  But you are free to be stupid in America, so go ahead and MISS the point of the posting and make it some MoveOn/Michael Moore conspiracy.<BR>
<BR>
Why not comment on the substance of the posting, not your lame "reaction?"
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From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=1450">Lolly Gaggin</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

Your "civil war" comment is equally lame and stupid.  It may have some factual accuracy, but your inference that it was somehow a planned act of death by the soldiers towards the native Americans is a really twisted and dumb revisionist/conspiracy theory.
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From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=10">galadrial</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

Possibly because i do not argue with morons.<BR>
Or those who's parents were too closely related.<BR>

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From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=74">Echolocation</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

It's true that AIDS isn't, per se, a political topic but as Gala points out it has been politicized many times in many different ways and, like abortion, now carries a pretty weighty load of political baggage.  The problem with the article Lolly quotes is that it lays the blame on an irresponsible "reckless gay subculture."  That statement right there politicizes the article and the issue, because it blames the disease on gays -- specifically, gay men.  <BR>
<BR>
Irresponsible heterosexual sex is just as bad, just as dangerous, and contributes just as much to the evolution of "superviruses" as irresponsible homosexual sex.  In Africa, for example, it's the hetero culture that's primarily responsible for the spread of AIDS/HIV.<BR>
<BR>
That said, the new drug-resistant strain *is* a bad and dangerous thing.  It's also completely not surprising.  We've got drug-resistant strep, typhus, tuberculosis, and I think syphilis -- it was only a matter of time before HIV/AIDS joined the party.  Happy-go-lucky carefree sex is clearly (or should be) a thing of the past.  Have all the fun you want but don't be stupid; it may not be just you that gets hurt.<BR>
<BR>
Re the distribution of smallpox-ridden blankets, and Lolly's comment "your inference that it was somehow a planned act of death by the soldiers towards the native Americans is a really twisted and dumb."  There is much discussion about this topic but on at least one occasion we seem to have proof that it was done, and done deliberately to infect the  Native Americans.  On the other hand, there is no proof that it was a wide-spread tactic or that it was in common use.  <BR>
<BR>
The one case that is documented was in the 1760's, by a British officer, Lord Jeffrey Amherst.  You can see the letters from Lord Jeffrey here <a href="http://academic.udayton.edu/health/syllabi/Bioterrorism/00intro02.htm">http://academic.udayton.edu/health/syllabi/Bioterrorism/00intro02.htm</a> or there's an interesting thread on the discussion group IEAHCNET here <a href="http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~west/threads/disc-smallpox.html">http://www.h-net.msu.edu/~west/threads/disc-smallpox.html</a> .  
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From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=74">Echolocation</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

tanq -<BR>
<BR>
...provide the goatskins?<BR>
...refrain from providing the goatskins?<BR>
...promise not to give any to the goats?<BR>
<BR>
So many options, so little time LOL!!
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From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=12">Tanqueray Cowboy</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

Just thought I'd let you use your imagination.<BR>
<BR>
Yes, there are MANY intriguing options...<BR>
You're wrong about time, though.  It has a way of running out when you least expect it.
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From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=12">Tanqueray Cowboy</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

Adios, Dr. Thompson... you were one wierd son-of-a-bitch but Misti's right, you had balls... and an keen sense of the absurdity of American life and politics.<BR>
<BR>
Gala~<BR>
I can't wait for you ADULT book.  I'm blushing already.  (And the Tanqueray Cowboy blushes not easily.)<BR>
<BR>
Misti/Ali ~<BR>
Thanks for the recommendation of Garden State!  I'd heard about it but might never have actually rented it without the rave reviews.  A great romantic comendy with a pretty cool sound-track.<BR>
<BR>
So what's the Tanqueray Cowboy listening to?<BR>
(in no particular order)<BR>
Rachael Yamagata - Happenstance<BR>
Charlotte Martin - On Your Shore<BR>
Carbon Leaf - Indian Summer<BR>
Alison Krauss - Lonely runs Both Ways<BR>
<BR>
~tc
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From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=8">Ali</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

tanq~<BR>
<BR>
It was actually Misit and Violet who recommended Garden State.  Just thought ya should know.  I love Zach Braff and think he's great in Scrubs, but the movie is not my favorite work of his, though Natalie Portman did an awesome job with her character.  <BR>
<BR>
Love and dreaming grace, Ali
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From: <a href="/blend/av.cgi?id=12">Tanqueray Cowboy</a><BR>
Date: 21 February 2005<P>

Oops... thx Ali... sorry Violet.
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