Fucking awesome cause

I started volunteering with Northern Virginia AIDS Ministry in early February and it's been an awesome blessing. They have an online aution going on now, and there's only FIVE hours left, so you can jump in and get a great deal on something. Chiggedy check it out!

Honesty is the best policy

You know ... sometimes I don't get stuff.

Tonight's Stuff I Don't Get edition comes in the form of the words of some random D.C.-area DJ that I heard while I was out for coffee during work. I had coffee in hand, I was driving back to the office and listening to the radio. I flipped the station at a red light and was treated to a DJ lamenting some of the recent reports of the insanely high HIV infection rates in D.C.

Let me say that I have no idea which station I was on. I heard about 90 seconds of the banter and had to shut my radio off because I was suffering from a rad case of Crazy Rage. Here's what I learned:

- HIV infection rates are high in D.C. because of men who are on the DL.
- HIV can be prevented with honesty.
- If the DJ were to ever engage in a same-sex relationship, she would totally prevent any sort of STD through this policy of honesty.

Do I have to say this next part? She went on a pretty serious But You Guys I'm So Not Queer I Am Wicked Heterosexual tangent to cover up the stupid thing she'd already said.

I don't know. I'm many years removed from my role as undergraduate safer sex advocate, but I naively assumed that we were in a place where straight folks had stopped blaming gay men for HIV/AIDS. I also assumed that we were also in some sort of mystical, enlightened phase where, "Oh, but I trust them!" was actually considered a little wrong-headed.

Honesty: it's just like latex and bloodwork!

Debbie Downer

The Washington Post's story, "Study Calls HIV in D.C. a 'Modern Epidemic.' "

"Almost 12,500 people in the District were known to have HIV or AIDS in 2006, according to the report. Figures suggest that the number of new HIV cases began declining in 2003, but the administration said the drop more likely reflects underreporting or delayed reporting. A quarter-century into the epidemic, the city's cumulative number of AIDS cases exceeds 17,400.

"HIV/AIDS in the District has become a modern epidemic with complexities and challenges that continue to threaten the lives and well-being of far too many residents," the report states."