I think I’ve figured it out. There’s something in public health called the “prevention paradox”: measures of disease prevention that offer great benefits to populations at large (such as fluoridation of water sources, wearing seatbelts, lifestyle changes, smallpox vaccinations, etc) offer little benefit or personal incentive to individuals.
But research shows that health education geared toward individuals (counseling on reducing salt intake for hypertension, exercise for diabetes, etc) are less effective when geared only toward individuals and/or used in a short-term approach. People are motivated to act for immediate gain and substantial personal benefits, but “the medical motivation for health education is inherently weak. Their health next year is not likely to be much better if they accept our advice or if they reject it. Much more powerful as motivators for health education are the social rewards of enhanced self-esteem and social approval.” (Geoffrey Rose, Sick Individuals and Sick Populations.)
Physicians also prefer individualized health education because with population interventions (such as anti-smoking campaigns), their success rates are low and results take a long time to achieve.
The US is such an individual-centric society that people have no cultural reason to care about population health as a whole. Most Americans do not see that universal access to healthcare means that problems are detected and treated early (which is less costly), and that sometimes preventive medicine can encourage life-saving behavior change. That the person going into the ER for stomach pain because s/he does not have health insurance is costing the taxpayer literally thousands more dollars than s/he would if s/he’d gone to a primary care physician.
Nor do they understand the concept of herd immunity- if a large proportion of a population is immune to or vaccinated against a particular disease, the likelihood that one individual will get that disease is far less.
The focus on the individual and the apathy toward the well-being of communities and populations is by no means restricted to health alone. The same can be said about the current financial crisis. Individuals who borrowed more than they could pay back, and their unscrupulous lenders have created a global downward spiral of hundreds of economies, with the bottom billion hit the hardest.
I find it ironic and deeply saddening that 30 million more people have been pushed into starvation thus far due to the financial crisis while bankers are taking hefty bonuses and governments are bailing out businesses that were failing even before the crash (GM, Chrysler, etc…)
I find it inaccurate to call President Obama's decision to end the Global Gag Rule, an "order... ending the prohibition on sending aid to international organisations that provide abortion." (Brief Encounter, January 31st). Obama's decision does not change the fact that US tax-payers' dollars cannot be used to provide abortions overseas. The
legislation, first enacted by Ronald Reagan, rejected by Clinton and reinstated by Bush, prohibited US family planning assistance to organizations that use non-US funds to perform abortions (even in countries where it is legal), provide counseling and referrals for abortion, and lobby to liberalize abortion laws.
None of these restrictions would be permitted within the United States, where abortion is legal. Yet US ideologues had no qualms about denying poor women the right to decide when and if to carry out a pregnancy. Each year there are 19 million unsafe abortions, most of which could be prevented if poor women had access to voluntary family
planning including contraception, sex education, and the ability to prevent unwanted pregnancies. In addition, women with fewer births are able to invest more in their children's nutrition and education-- resulting in healthier, more productive contributors to society.
Many of the organizations that lost their funding were unable to provide other life-saving services such as maternal and infant healthcare, poverty reduction, and HIV prevention. For example, the United Nations Population Fund lost its US contribution of $244 million over seven years, based on a spurious claim of collusion with the Chinese government in coerced sterilizations. This contributed to 74,000 deaths from unsafe abortion globally each year, even though Bush's own hand-picked State Department team visited China and found no evidence that UNFPA participated in such programs; and, indeed, that its programs were "a force for good." Obama's move to restore reproductive freedoms to women will surely reduce global demand for abortion and improve overall population health.
(PS- the picture of all the old white dudes is from bush's second day in office, when he signed the global gag rule back into its miserable existence.)
Today there are approximately 3 million Indians living with HIV and AIDS, a number that masks the human faces behind a disease that has been reviled and misunderstood as the worst plague in human history. A disease often considered to afflict only those regarded as the dredges of society, AIDS has the potential both to expose the dark underbelly of society, and also to inspire triumphs of human compassion and perseverance.
AIDS Sutra, funded by the Gates Foundation, is a compilation of 16 vibrant essays about Indians living with HIV by some of South Asia’s most gifted authors, including Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, and Kiran Desai. Several of the essays are narrated directly from the authors’ home communities; others are the fruition of their travels to the vastly different regions of India.
Siddharth Deb’s poignant account, “The Lost Generation of Manipur,” brings him to a remote corner of India bereft of employment opportunities and constantly on edge due to communal violence. Uncontrolled injecting drug use in the region puts young people of working age especially at risk for HIV infection.
Salman Rushdie’s piece on the politics and culture of the hijra (intersexed and/or transgender) community is a concise account of a population that defies society´s common [mis]perceptions around gender and HIV risk. Rushdie interviews a transgender AIDS activist named Laxmi, who lives in a constant duality of gender- going as a man by day and living with her parents, and transforming into a woman at night and on the weekends. Her advocacy on behalf of this distinct community in India has helped to distinguish hijras as a third gender- with different needs and challenges than men who have sex with men.
Other stories included in the book examine the lives of truck drivers, sex workers, and devadasis, women traditionally given to god, and nowadays women who choose or are forced into sex work as a means of income generation. In Sunil Gangopadhyay’s essay, “Return to Sonagacchi,” the author returns home to Kolkata to compose a compelling account of the lives of sex workers in Sonagachhi, narrating both the deprivation they face and also their power as an organized movement fighting for their rights as sex workers to safety, health services, education for their children, freedom from police persecution, and dignity.
Bill and Melinda Gates give the anthology’s introduction, and its insightful forward is written by the Nobel Prize-winning economist and author of Development as Freedom, Amartya Sen. Sen revolutionized the traditional economic paradigm by asserting that development is not simply about increasing per capita income, but rather “a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy.” His examination of the economic effects of AIDS in India is nuanced in its consideration of both the beneficial impact of Indian pharmaceuticals in producing affordable antiretroviral drugs for much of the world, and the irony that income disparity in India prevents the majority of Indians living with HIV from accessing treatment, quality medical facilities, shelter, employment opportunities, and community support.
Sen argues that stigma is the primary fuel of the epidemic in India, where widespread ignorance pervades about how HIV is—and is not—transmitted. Among young Indians just reaching working age, knowledge how HIV is spread is dismally low at 25% of the population according to UNAIDS (20% comprehensive knowledge among women and 36% among men). Because many Indians still believe that HIV can be transmitted through touch, sharing food, or through aerosol transmission, Indians living with HIV face discrimination in schools and workplaces, ostracization, rejection from their families, and in many cases, violence and even death.
India’s uncomfortable and often times paradoxical relationship with sex and sexuality is often at the root of ignorance and discrimination against HIV, with 87% of new infections in India occurring through unprotected sexual intercourse each year according to India’s National AIDS Control Organization. Despite an ancient culture rich in celebration of natural human sexuality, imperial-era taboos surrounding sex continue to create a stifling conservatism that limits access to scientific information about sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health, and the rights of women and sexual minorities.
In Amit Chaudhuri’s essay, “Healing,” he remarks that “The troubling ambiguity of sex through history— the fact that it bestows life and pleasure, and also, in a way that can’t be entirely explained by morality, confuses and shames— have converged in a new way upon this disease.” His interviews with Alka Desphpande, an AIDS researcher and physician in India’s first AIDS ward, reveal the challenges faced even by the medical community in becoming educated about HIV. Large numbers of Indian health care workers still believe that HIV is transmitted by touch, and widespread denial of treatment and discrimination against people living with HIV is common.
The first essay “Mister X Versus Hospital Y” by Nikita Lalwani tells the story of a Dr. Tokugha who is infected with HIV and becomes an important activist when his results are disclosed to his family (and bride-to-be’s family) before he himself is made aware of his status, just days before the wedding. His lawsuit against the hospital’s breach of his privacy sparked controversial debate and the release of his name in newspapers all across India. The court ruled against him, “decreeing that the hospital’s release of the information to the minister without his consent had ‘saved the life’ of Toku’s proposed fiancée. The essay forces us to consider the complexities behind forced disclosure of one’s HIV status. Not only was Dr. “Toku”’s right to self-disclose taken away from him, the judge tacked on a devastating addition to the ruling, that suspended the right of HIV positive people to marry. The laudable human rights organization, The Lawyers’ Collective, fought for years to restore this basic human right to people living with HIV, succeeding in 2002. Since then, Dr. Toku has become a prominent physician in the field, and goes above and beyond by arranging matches between people living with HIV.
Discrimination and national legislation intersect most brutally in India with the penal code provision 377 that makes homosexuality a criminal offense. Drafted in 1860 during British Rule, the anachronistic law fines and imprisons Indians caught in the act of sodomy and even oral sex for between ten years and a lifetime in jail. The law has served to drive homosexuality “underground” where men having unprotected sex with men cannot be reached for HIV awareness raising, sexual health services, STI screening, or recourse for police persecution and demanding of bribes.
One story included in the collection was strikingly disappointing— to the point of giving offense. Shobhaa De’s “When AIDS Came Home” reveals the author’s ignorant, discriminatory and classist lack of understanding of HIV and AIDS. Her account of how her driver becomes infected with HIV and gradually dies from AIDS is peppered with comments about her “repulsion” that he had spent so much time with her children, speculations about his involvement with sex workers and his sexuality, and self-congratulatory accolades when she provided occasional money for a doctor or medicine.
De’s piece examines her misconceptions about AIDS and vaguely suggests that she has seen the error in her was (perhaps simply because it would not be politically correct to admit otherwise), but still fails to include what lessons she has learned. Indeed, to conclude her story Shobhaa marvels that “Although they are such an intimate part of our lives, how little we really know about the people who work for us… it took Shankar’s death to see him as a human.” She concludes by lying to her children and telling them that the driver was infected through a blood transfusion because the reality that many men purchase sex is too shocking to bear.
By far the most thought-provoking inclusion in the anthology, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi’s “Hello, Darling,” diverges from the book’s overall focus on more “marginalized” populations of sex workers, drug users and truckers, to recount the life experiences with HIV of an upper-class homosexual film director whose pseudonym is given as “Murad.” Openly flamboyant, driven to success, and yet still slow to “come out” about his homosexuality, and later, HIV status, Murad escapes the confines of Bombay and moves to New York City. He is unable to move in the local film circuit and returns to Bombay years later, where he eventually succumbs to AIDS.
Shanghvi’s piece is particularly well-researched and deeply-felt; his account considers early chronicles of the impact of AIDS on art and artists in Edmund White’s “Esthetics and Loss,” and the strange phenomenon of how AIDS “got noticed,” as explained in Urvashi Vaid’s “Virtual Equality,” in which she observes “how the passing of an entire generation from AIDS helped give rise to the modern idea of homosexuality: thousands of men had to die, in fact, to have to be seen as alive in the first place.” Shanghvi’s inclusion was particularly important and contrasted sharply with De’s story. “Hello, Darling” should serve as a wake-up call to elites believing in their infallibility, since the risk behaviors that propel the spread of HIV in India are by no means limited to lower socioeconomic echelons of society.
Overall, the anthology is an important, moving, and transformative read. Each story is relatively brief and gives a taste of the authors’ diverse and prolific literary talents. Some tales, such as De’s, are clearly geared toward upper class Indians who are beginning to understand the complexities of the AIDS epidemic in India. Still others delve into economic, political and human rights aspects of the disease. Till now, literature and artistic works on AIDS in India have been limited and relatively unknown. AIDS Sutra gives voice to communities and individuals that have been destroyed, silenced, affected and transformed by AIDS in a jarring and yet deeply meaningful manner.
Quoted from BBC News
Fighting in Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia has caused death and widespread destruction. Georgian, Russian and South Ossetian forces have all been involved. There have also been clashes in Abkhazia, and Russian attacks on other parts of Georgia.
The separatist administrations in South Ossetia and Abkhazia have been trying to gain formal independence since breaking away in the early 1990s.
Tensions in both regions began to escalate after Mikhail Saakashvili was elected Georgian president in 2004, on a promise to re-unite the country.
The conflicts have remained largely frozen, despite occasional flare-ups, until this month.
What triggered the crisis?
A series of clashes between Georgian and South Ossetian forces in the summer of 2008 prompted Georgia to launch an aerial bombardment and ground attack on South Ossetia on 7 August.
Georgian forces controlled the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, for part of the following day.
Russia, meanwhile, poured thousands of troops into South Ossetia, and launched bombing raids both over the province and on targets in the rest of Georgia.
There have been unverified reports of war crimes on both sides.
Did the Russian forces enter South Ossetia before or after the Georgian attack?
This is unclear.
Georgia says it began its assault after learning that a large convoy of Russian armour was coming through the Roki tunnel, from North Ossetia into South Ossetia.
Russia says it acted to defend Russian citizens in South Ossetia, and its own peacekeepers stationed in the breakaway region.
How did the conflict develop?
Russian forces occupied parts of Georgia adjoining South Ossetia, including the town of Gori, a strategic town on the main road linking eastern and western Georgia.
They also moved from bases in Abkhazia into parts of western Georgia, and the Russian fleet went into action against the Georgian navy.
Abkhaz forces re-captured the Kodori Gorge - a region of Abkhazia taken under control by Georgian troops in 2006.
Who are the main casualties?
Large numbers of civilians have been driven out of their homes in South Ossetia. Many South Ossetians have crossed over to the Russian republic of North Ossetia.
Residents of Georgian villages in South Ossetia, and the town of Gori, have also fled.
The South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, is reported to be largely in ruins.
Why is Russia involved?
More than half of South Ossetia's 70,000 citizens are said to have taken up Moscow's offer of Russian citizenship. Russia says its actions were designed to protect those citizens.
Russia also has peacekeepers based in South Ossetia. Some of these were killed in the Georgian attack on 7 August.
Until recently, Russia said it respected Georgia's territorial integrity, and only wanted to look out for Russian citizens. But, following Georgia's military action, Russian PM Vladimir Putin said it was now unlikely that South Ossetia would reintegrate with the rest of Georgia.
Does Georgia have links to Nato?
President Saakashvili has made membership of Nato one of his main goals - and Nato agreed in April 2008 that Georgia would become a member of the alliance at some unspecified date in the future.
The country has had a close relationship with the United States - sending troops to join the US-led coalition in Iraq.
The US has helped to train and arm the Georgian military. It also helped Georgian troops return from Iraq after the Russian incursion into South Ossetia.
What is the status of South Ossetia?
South Ossetia has run its own affairs since fighting for independence from Georgia in 1991-92, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
It has declared independence, though this has not been recognised by any other country.
Abkhazia is in the same position.
Why do Ossetians want to break away?
The Ossetians are a distinct ethnic group originally from the Russian plains just south of the Don river. In the 13th Century, they were pushed southwards by Mongol invasions into the Caucasus mountains, settling along the border with Georgia.
South Ossetians want to join up with their ethnic brethren in North Ossetia, which is an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation.
Ethnic Georgians are a minority in South Ossetia, accounting for less than one-third of the population.
But Georgia rejects even the name South Ossetia, preferring to call it by the ancient name of Samachablo, or Tskhinvali, after its main city.
Greetings everyone,
I will be attending WYC in August and I am anxious to meet all of you !
As the Virtual Congress Co ordinator, I am hoping that youth inspired ideas, actions and issues will be brought to the forefront of the congress and highlighted at the Virtual Congress. I wanted to know about your thoughts prior to the Congress.....
Today June 20th is World Refugee Day, it will go unnoticed by the majority of the world ... Many are running for their lives on this day or dying on this day. But whether it is noticed or not today stands as one of the most important days of the year. It is a day of respect and remembrance for the most vulnerable people in the world - Angelina Jolie, Goodwill Ambassador, UNHCR
Give refugees a hand!
Please take a moment to upload a video of you and your friends making the "protecting hands" symbol on Youtube. For each original video uploaded, our sponsors will donate $1 to help the
UNHCR protect refugees worldwide.
OR
Add Give Refugees a Hand application on Facebook and $.10 twill be donated o refugees across the world through the UN Refugee Agency. You could also take a picture making the "protecting hands" symbol and post it on the page and for every photo uploaded $1 will be donated to UNHCR.
Upon awakening from the disaster left by Cyclone Nargis, people watching the news are perplexed with why the government has seized the aid and is not responding quickly to the tragedy.
The people of Burma (Myanmar) have already suffered at the hands of the military junta and this incident will expose how the people continue to be failed by the government.
Yet, their governments are no the only one that should be held accountable for the atrocities that have been happening within its borders.
Canadians are as much responsible !
Why do 'some' people know about their rights and others are being denied of their rights? Why are the upholders of rights also the perpetrators of infringements on rights. On the eve, of the UDHR anniversary, these questions are pertinent to ask in order to move forward in the 'advancement' for Human Rights.
Human Rights belong to everyone who in essence are 'human'. Yet, the application of human rights has not been equal and cross-cutting globally. Is it because ' human rights' were essentially documented as a western concept not in the context of cultural relativism? I believe the definition of human rights and how 'accessible' they are by all needs to be changed. Whether we are all 'equal' or not is not the point, we are all human. Yes, we are all different but having differences does not make one lesser than the other.
Education, economics and globalization all play a vital role in reforming how human rights can be entitled 'equally' by all. Because without human rights.. you have... nothing...
Wow. I was out of town for a couple days and come back to find Obama taking the lead, with Hillary's campaign manager and deputy manager resigned! McCain has promised no new taxes for his entire campaign, this just as the recession is looming, and the taxes in April will bring in less revenue than in years. The sub-prime mortgage crisis was not just a poor people's phenomenon- this type of behavior, of borrowing far more than one could ever expect to pay off, pervades the highest levels of government!
I have mixed feelings about MoveOn.org, but I really admire their new campaign "Iraq/Recession". They have a nice new email action that allows you to easily and automatically write an op-ed to your local newspaper (they send it, you write it) making the tie between the American recession and the Iraq spending. (A tie that is obvious, but few people actually realize!)
Some interesting facts:
"As of today, we've spent over $495 billion in Iraq.1 With the economy in the tank, think about what that money could do here at home: Cover millions of kids who don't have insurance, or help folks who're losing their jobs and homes.
Instead, it's supporting a failed occupation in Iraq.
More and more Americans are making the connection between the billions we've spent over there and the crumbling economy here at home. In fact, a new AP poll shows that most Americans think ending the war is the best way to help the economy.2 But pundits still talk about the war and the economy as two unrelated things.
* The recession is going to force states to cut back their budgets. Most likely, the cuts are going to affect the services that working families need and depend on.3
* Meanwhile, the war is costing Americans more than $338 million a day. 4 That money could be spent to help out the folks who're hurting most now. For less than what we're spending on the war, we could pay for affordable housing for hundreds of thousands of families, health care for children, or scholarships to help folks pay for education. 5
* Gas prices are close to double what they were before the war began. The cost of oil is still hovering around $100 barrel. 6
* We're borrowing $343 million every day to finance the war in Iraq. 7 Our skyrocketing debt will be a bigger and bigger drag on the economy—slowing recovery and burdening future generations.
If thousands of us write, we can get the media to stop ignoring the connection between the war and the recession. The opinion pages are the most widely read pages in the newspaper, so we can also make sure voters—who are growing increasingly concerned about the economy—know that any candidate who wants to stay in Iraq has no plan for the economy."
Gone are the days of boinking creatures on the head in Super Mario
Brothers. Today's popular games are all about gruesome murder and
violence.
I had the lovely experience of playing Halo, a video game which,
thankfully, I am terrible at, which involves killing people with guns,
lasers, nail-spewing killing machines, and other highly effective and
incredibly scary weapons. When you kill someone, your entire
controller shakes and vibrates much like, I imagine, a real machine
gun would do.
I can understand why this game is so popular with soldiers in Iraq and
Afghanistan. It must help them to dehumanize their colonial subjects,
and normalize the experience of killing. I can also see why it's
popular with American teens, who are inundated with graphic violence
through movies, television, and news networks. Ultimately it will lead
them to sign up, to "die for their country" and maybe kill off a few
Muslims here and there to boot.
To the point-
It seems the Church thinks this is a wonderful way to attract young
people to the church, and, in their words, to promote "fellowship."
Whatever happened to "Thou Shalt Not Kill"? Is non-violence pass??
Great news- New York has finally acknowledged that abstinence-only sex education may not be the best idea in a state with rising HIV infection rates, teen pregnancy, and STIs.
Why are the Catholics still saying that giving young people condoms will increase "promiscuity" when numerous studies show that comprehensive sex education actually causes young people to delay first intercourse and to use condoms when they do have sex? (1)
By JENNIFER MEDINA
The decision puts New York in line with at least 10 other states
that have decided to forgo the federal money in recent years.
Excerpt:
"Dr. Daines's announcement came the same day that the New York Civil
Liberties Union, which opposes abstinence-only education, released a
report detailing the number of such programs in the state. The report
stated that roughly half of the groups teaching abstinence in the
state were religious groups and that the state had done almost nothing
to monitor them."
Yet again forcing the Surgeon General of the United States to be the mouthpiece for the Bush Administration's lies, a report calling for action on global health was suppressed by the administration because Carmona kept it a-political.
Steiger, with absolutely no qualifications in global health whatsoever, pulled the report because it did not laud the United States for its action against global health crises such as AIDS, TB and Malaria.
What is there to laud? The United States, the wealthiest country in the world, ranks last in the amount of money it spends on global health from among industrialized nations as a percentage of its GNP/ wealth. (Citation: USAID)
Congratulations to Carmona for speaking out about how his freedom of speech has been curtailed.
By Christopher Lee and Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 29, 2007; Page A01
A surgeon general's report in 2006 that called on Americans to help tackle global health problems has been kept from the public by a Bush political appointee without any background or expertise in medicine or public health, chiefly because the report did not promote the administration's policy accomplishments, according to current and former public health officials.
The report described the link between poverty and poor health, urged the U.S. government to help combat widespread diseases as a key aim of its foreign policy, and called on corporations to help improve health conditions in the countries where they operate. A copy of the report was obtained by The Washington Post.
Three people directly involved in its preparation said its publication was blocked by William R. Steiger, a specialist in education and a scholar of Latin American history whose family has long ties to President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Since 2001, Steiger has run the Office of Global Health Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services.
This is absolutely unbelievable! Bush pardoned Scooter Libby! Just look at the grin on his face- Justice evaded, one more time........
What is the lesson learned? Even if you're a diplomat and you question the Bush Adminstration's lies (by writing an op-ed that Iraq did not buy enriched Uranium from Niger), you and your family will be punished by the government. (They leaked the name of his wife, Valerie Wilson, for being an undercover CIA agent).
Bush is not pardoning Scooter, he's pardoning himself. With 18 months left in office, he can do whatever he wants pretty much, with no repercussion whatsoever.
Jesus now we've got the likes of Scooter Libby and Paris Hilton roaming free on the streets of America. Talk about dictatorships!
Sandra M. Kenley was returning home from her native Barbados in 2005 when she was swept into the United States’ fastest-growing form of incarceration, immigration detention.
...
Seven weeks later, Ms. Kenley died in a rural Virginia jail, where she had complained of not receiving medicine for high blood pressure. She was one of 62 immigrants to die in administrative custody since 2004, according to a new tally by Immigration and Customs Enforcement that counted many more deaths than the 20 previously known.
...
In the case of Ms. Kenley, a legal permanent resident of the United States for more than 30 years, detention interrupted her medical care for high blood pressure, a fibroid tumor and uterine bleeding. An autopsy attributed her death to an enlarged heart from chronic hypertensive disease. But a report by emergency medical services said that she had fallen from a top bunk, and that a cellmate had pounded on the door for 20 minutes before guards responded.
........
The inspector general in the Department of Homeland Security recently announced a “special review” of two deaths, including that of a Korean woman at a privately run detention center in Albuquerque. Fellow detainees told a lawyer that the woman, Young Sook Kim, had pleaded for medical care for weeks, but received scant attention until her eyes yellowed and she stopped eating.
Ms. Kim died of pancreatic cancer in federal custody on Sept. 11, 2005, a day after she was taken to a hospital.
“We spend $98 million annually to provide medical care for people in our custody,” Ms. Zuieback said. “Anybody who violates our national immigration law is going to get the same treatment by I.C.E. regardless of their medical condition.” (Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security)
We're fighting two wars. We don't have enough troops, and they don't even have bullet proof vests or car armor. We definitely do not have enough Arabic translators, and what self-respecting person with Arab roots or Muslim would sign up to be a translator for the US anyway? How many Americans do you know who are fluent in Arabic?
Stephen Benjamin wrote an excellent Op-Ed in the NYtimes today. The military read through his instant messages and kicked them out for being gay. The other 68 heterosexual men's instant messages contained conversations about their sexual misconduct, mysoginistic comments, profanities, etc. They were not kicked out.
I bet some of them were the same types as the Abu Ghraib torturers whose sexual misconduct was a grotesque aberration. But Bush and his cronies defend torture. How on earth can the Bible be against homosexuality but pro Torture?
When will this country get its priorities straight?
"In response to difficult recruiting prospects, the Army has already taken a number of steps, lengthening soldiers’ deployments to 15 months from 12, enlisting felons and extending the age limit to 42. Why then won’t Congress pass a bill like the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would repeal “don’t ask, don’t tell”? The bipartisan bill, by some analysts’ estimates, could add more than 41,000 soldiers — all gay, of course."
