this is me, Steve
Mood: thoughtful
So it's the first post. For what I would imagine would be a very non committal expectation, people get obsessive compulsive about what goes into their first post. Which is precisely the reason I will go with the 'completely no theme' approach. Not that hard really. Think seventh grade, with the one kid who read aloud completely monotone, saying such painfully without context stuff like "I have a dog, his name is Spot and after we played in the field the radio said that school was cancelled, we had milk"
Not exactly the smoothest turn one hopes for, however the literary instrument known as the blog, currently competing with "The Paris Review" for content is not likely anytime soon. Therefore I decided it not required to scratch my eyes out, a la Tippi Hedren. (ok, SHE didn't scratch them out, the birds did), however journalistic accountability is not, to my knowledge, required of not subtle high camp references to going blind via a beak.
So, the topic at hand. The journal posts. I have come up with several categories that are many things, not the least of which thought provoking. The monolithic "culture" as category, as if it could ever exist without reference, is rather...dull. Obviously the goal of a blog is not to be "dull", so I viewed 'dull' descriptions rather anticlimactic.
Although I really wish the text box could have taken the entire text of "Queer Studies: A step by step approach to being a humorless C grade academic malcontent with a completely over inflated marginalization via denial of access paradigm". Your guess that the mildly sardonic giggle above was in any way related to an experience taken from a personal frame of reference is completely accurate. So...What about it??
The topics are many, and I'm sure will engender debate. Which on my watch is a good thing, one I believe we are requiring in the gay community currently.
In closing, I will begin the 'journals' off with a piece that is , despite the light weight I appear to be giving the blog concept, one of the most important issues in the world today. That is the state of HIV and AIDS in Africa.
I am currently writing this entry from my balcony at the Hyatt Regency (sarcasm) in the capital city, in the country of Sudan. I am here doing some early ground work for my PhD in advanced practice nursing, the proposed thesis being a sustainable prevention, containment and aggressive treatment model for HIV. As I have worked in the field of medical management of third world HIV in the past, I didn't think I would be surprised by the level at which this pandemic is operating. I am overwhelmed.
Mr. Bush and his requirement of condoms being used as a third line defense, if at all, or no money, really has wonderful implications for a part of the world where the majority of females acquire HIV, not from autonomous and fully choiced sexual engagement, but from a culture where a subservience to men may not be legal, however it is clearly silently endorsed. The majority of women who acquire HIV in Africa have been raped. Just below them in numbers are the ones who engage in the transaction of sex for survival.
As the lovely pasty blond missionary from Fresno said, "Well really, the dirty whores should know better". The average age of the "dirty whores" is thirteen. What is even more sobering is that nine out of ten of these children have already lost one or both parents to HIV. They now know an existence that is meant to sustain a family. The reality of which is having sex with a man who is the usually the age of their grandfather.
So I think these journals can have a balance between what we need to laugh at, and what we cannot afford to ignore.
Steve
