George Bush has never looked cuter. Bush and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah were holding hands while apparently discussing important issues, but as expected, people were mostly interested in the hand-holding.
Nail al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabian Embassy spokesman in Washington, D.C., has been surprised by the interest in the hand-holding pictures. "We've gotten more calls on this particular thing than actually what was said," he said, referring to the meetings about oil production, the Middle East and terrorism.
Are westerners being shown that the line between homo-whatever and "normal" male behaviour not that clear? I do like the idea of male-male relationships, neither familiar nor homosexual, being protrayed as simply deep, noble friendships rather than necessarily anything sexual. Romantic, perhaps, like relationships that can develop in times of war and deep strife. Those relationships used to be seen for what they were; love stemming from respect, honour and valour. Male virtues. These things seem to have been forgotten. I am afraid that I may have never had them. There are many reasons for this that I won't get into here, but I will say that I think that there are many things at play: civil rights, feminism, gay rights, social "progression" as a whole. It is these things that explain why people are more interested in Bush's handholding than what Bush said, and why I am not as kind as I might have been if I were born in the 30s.
This started making the rounds around the Internet a couple of months ago, but since I have been a shitty blogger in the last couple of months, I am only seeing it now. One can only think that the reason why this is happening is because this is still in beta.
But seriously, though, if there are so many Christian organizations in Africa wanting to help them, could they also be trying to prevent condom use, especially if they are Catholic? Could this "help" be contributing to the spread of the epidemic? The conspiracy theorist in me can't help but think that perhaps this is deliberate. Keep them ignorant and sick, and they won't be able to take a prominent place in the world. But they needn't worry, especially when they believe in things like AIDS cures that consist of having sex with a virgin.
The beginning of this five-year-old article really tells a story, and it's just numbers. I would like to compare the epidemic in Africa to a couple of other great massacres in human history, ones which we are supposed to actually care about. The Holocaust, caused by war among whites, killed millions and millions of people in six years, six million of which were Jews. We aren't allowed to forget this. Something closer to the AIDS: the bubonic plague killed some 25-30 million people over a generation. In Europe. We remember this 900 years later. What are the chances that people will remember the 1994 Rwandan massacre in which 800 000 people were slaughtered? Or the AIDS epidemic in which, by 2010, 71 million will have died?
I don't mean to suggest that the responsibility rests solely on the heads of, say, Canada. Like I said, it doesn't help that they have some wild ideas about the disease. Most men are not tested there; it is widely seen as a curse from women. Women are more likely to be testred because they are more likely to see a doctor for any reason. Men just don't. People are so poor there that they either don't know what's going on, or that they will believe anything. This is true in any comparatively poor population in the world. Poor people get bad information from within or from without because they aren't educated.
I'm not even Catholic, but yet I do feel sad at the death of the Pope. The Easter address was particularly tough to watch; an old, dying man trying his best to fulfill his duties, but failing. He was the third Pope in my lifetime, but the only one I actually knew of. Even I, the cynic, will miss him.