Tuesday, December 4, 2007

GAY STUFF: "Last Call" Article

I will blog about this later (after having already blogged once about it):

"Last Call" Op/Ed piece from the Boston Globe

Although there is clearly a link there as to why I found this article interesting, notice the point of the "long tail" business. IE: is the marketplace as a physical structure now disappearing??? ARe commercial centers at the end of their life?

Monday, December 3, 2007

GAY STUFF: Civil Unions.... in URUGUAY

Uruguay was the first country in Latin America to approve civil unions for gay couples.

That's right, folks. Uruguay beat us to the punch; oh, and made a punch line out of our country.

The Advocate story here.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

HIV/AIDS: Top 10 HIV/AIDS Stories from 2007

So, it's a day late (on my part), but 365Gay (owned by Viacom) posted a nice recap of the Top 10 HIV/AIDS news stories from 2007 in honor of World AIDS Day. The link can be found here .

The headlines:

1) HIV Numbers were too high -- new estimate it at 33.2 million infected in the world, with 6,800 new infections a day and 2.1m AIDS deaths a year

2) HIV infections rising among gay men -- 13% increase between 2001 and 2005 (One day I will recap my vent about the "AIDS numbers game," but the point is there... Men who have sex with men -- MSMs -- are the number one group getting HIV in this country)

3) Merck AIDS vaccine harmful -- oh yea, it increased the susceptibility to HIV/AIDS... oops

4) Conservative Protestants/Catholics taking on AIDS -- it's about time the conservative right recognized the human aspect of the disease

5) Bush asks for doubled funding for fighting world AIDS -- that would still only be $30billion, so just under a dollar per person infected... thanks, Shrub, your kindness knows no bounds

6) Democratic presidential candidates pressed to end AIDS -- supporting crazy ideas like $50billion in world funding, allowing needle exhange, comprehensive sex ed, and allowing HIV-positive foreigners to visit our country.. thanks, guys, these don't seem all that "activist" to me, I'm disappointed it took this long

7) Resurrection of virus may help us understand HIV -- using a form of HIV that was once found in ... rabbits?

8) World Health Org recommends circumcision -- after it was found that, yes, in fact, men who are circumcised are less likely to catch HIV, which is something most African prostitutes already knew

9) Washington, DC tops the list of infected cities -- to the tune of 1 in 50 people being infected (and, to add on, it is estimated, per other sites, that 1 in 7 black men in that city, I believe)

10) Homeland Security Restricts Travel for PWA -- because HIV has a lot to do with nuclear weapons

There you go. My responses came out cattier than I had expected.

CINCY GAY SCENE: Return to Oxford

Who thought we would bring out a record crowd and raise a record number of bucks for Caracole ($3100!!!!! -- http://www.caracole.org/ and also http://www.isqccbe.org/ -- our sponsoring drag troupe). What a great night :-).

But, as they say... all good things...