Kræst hvað ég hata þynnku. Ég var svo glaður í morgun að sjá að það var enn leiðinlegt veður úti. Það er nefnilega fátt ömurlegra en að vera þunnur í sólskini. Systir mín útskrifaðist úr háskóla í gær og var partí og svo fór ég á Hverfisbarinn. Mjög gaman!

Bendi á góðan pistil um O.J. réttarhöldin eftir Bill Simmons á ESPN. Það er náttúrulega magnað hversu mikið djók þau réttarhöld voru.

Já, og svo er þetta helvíti magnað: Blökkukonan í skautbúningnum

Eitt, sem gleymist í allri umfjöllun um Ronald Reagan er einn svartasti bletturinn á sögu hans, hvernig hann brást við alnæmi.

Á þessari síðu er ágætis umfjöllun og Ronald Reagan og alnæmi. Sjúkdómurinn kom fyrst fram 1981, en Reagan minntist aldrei opinberlega á alnæmi fyrr en 1987. Allir vissu um sjúkdóminn löngu áður.

Reagan hafði hins vegar óbeit á hommum og margir trúaðir hægrimenn voru sannfærðir um að alnæmi væri refsing fyrir homma, sem þeir ættu skilið. Reagan bannaði meira að segja landlækninum sínum að minnast á alnæmi fyrr en Reagan var endurkjörinn. Sennilega á enginn stjórnmálamaður jafn mikla sök á útbreiðslu alnæmis og Reagan. Hefði ríkisstjórn hans brugðist við með að fræða fólk um sjúkdóminn hefðu aldrei jafn margir smitast.

Ég bendi á frábæran pistil hér, þar sem hommi tjáir sig um dauða Reagan.

Einnig skrifar annar hommi bréf til besta vinar síns, sem lést af völdum alnæmis:

Yes, Steven, I do feel for the family and friends of the former President. The death of a loved one is always a profoundly sad occasion, and Mr. Reagan was loved by many. I have tremendous empathy and respect for Mrs. Reagan, who lovingly cared for him through excruciating years of Alzheimer’s.

Sorry, Steven, but even on this day I’m not able to set aside the shaking anger I feel over Reagan’s non-response to the AIDS epidemic or for the continuing anti-gay legacy of his administration. Is it personal? Of course. AIDS was first reported in 1981, but President Reagan could not bring himself to address the plague until March 31, 1987, at which time there were 60,000 reported cases of full-blown AIDS and 30,000 deaths. I remember that day, Steven - you were staying round-the-clock in Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital caring for your dying partner of over 15 years, Bruce Cooper. It was another 41 days of utter agony for both of you before Bruce died. During those years of White House silence and inaction, how many other dear friends did we see sicken and die hideous deaths?

Is it personal? Yes, Steven. I know for a fact that you would be alive today if the Reagan administration had mounted even a tepid response to the epidemic.

Einnig:

I wouldn’t feel so angry if the Reagan administration’s failing was due to ignorance or bureaucratic ineptitude. No, Steven, we knew then it was deliberate. The government’s response was dictated by the grip of evangelical Christian conservatives who saw gay people as sinners and AIDS as God’s well-deserved punishment. Remember? The White House Director of Communications, Patrick Buchanan, once argued in print that AIDS is nature’s revenge on gay men. Reagan’s Secretary of Education, William Bennett, and his domestic policy adviser, Gary Bauer, made sure that science (and basic tenets of Christianity, for that matter) never got in the way of politics or what they saw as “God’s” work.

Even so, I think I could let go of this anger if this was just another overwhelmingly sad chapter in our nation’s past. It is not. Steven, can you believe that the unholy pact President Reagan and the Republican Party entered with the forces of religious intolerance have not weakened, but grown exponentially stronger? Can you believe that the U.S. government is still bowing to right wing extremists and fighting condom distribution and explicit HIV education, even while AIDS is killing millions across the world? Or that “devout” Christians have forced the scrapping of AIDS prevention programs targeted at HIV-negative gay and bisexual men in favor of bullshit “abstinence only until marriage” initiatives? Or the shameless duplicity of these same forces seeking to forever outlaw even the hope of marriage for gay people? Or that Reagan stalwarts like Buchanan, Bennett and Bauer are still grinding their homophobic axes?

Það er alveg ljóst að þeir, sem hafa misst ástvini af völdum alnæmis munu aldrei gleyma arfleið Reagan.

Það ættum við hin heldur ekki að gera.