World AIDS Day

It's late in the day on World AIDS Day and I'm still not sure how to commemorate the day.

It's the 25th Anniversary year for the Pitt Men's Study. I started participating in that shortly after it began. Two years ago I wrote about giving a speech in a speech class shortly after giving my blood and fluid samples in the Pitt Study. One of the main things I wanted to get across in the speech was the importance of confidentiality to assure an effective public health response. In that University Times article I just linked to Charles R. Rinaldo one of the chief researchers of the study remarks about his regrets:

He said his research team walked a fine line between wanting to grab people by the shoulders and shake them to alert them to the danger, and the desire not to intimidate, insult or disrespect their choices in life. “Maybe if we had been more fear-inducing … maybe we would have saved more from infections, more lives.”

Maybe if they had been more fear inducing, but I'm not so sure. At the time the fears about social stigmatization were acute. That's why my speech was pleading for confidentiality in the public health response.

The principals at the Pitt Men's Study have other regrets. Their sample was overwhelmingly white. The same small town phenomena that allowed the recruitment of so many in the study, also revealed how isolated the broader community of Pittsburgh is along racial lines.

Looking back all of us wonder why we haven't done more to stop the spread of AIDS. AIDS is a preventable disease. Why, why we ask have we been so ineffectual in preventing new HIV infections? While the preventions are simple actually employing those preventions prove not to be quite so simple. Prejudice and intolerance stand in the way.

Unprotected sexual intercourse is a primary way that HIV is transmitted. In much of the industrial world the disease has hit men who have sex with men and intravenous drug users hardest. In the developing world the demographics of HIV infected persons looks quite different.

Sometimes this difference can be hard for AIDS activists to talk across. For example my friend Nathan's organization the BSLA has a program to assist widows caring for dependent orphans get more money from agriculture. A key part of the program is AIDS prevention education. They are aided in this effort by The Slum Doctor Programme out of Bellingham, Washington. Many of the Americans involved with the Slum Doctors are were AIDS activists here before becoming involved in their out reach in Kenya and Uganda. I don't remember the circumstances exactly, but in discussions an American in discussions with the BSLA said "You can't say that, some of the people helping you are gay."

The other side of the coin comes from a friend in Uganda, the capital city Kampala. He was moved to do something about the suffering caused by AIDS. For him the issue couldn't be divorced from the extreme prejudice against same gender loving people. He tried hard to attack the prejudice and misinformation and was knocked down hard by the government for that. Public discussion of homosexuality is not tolerated. In thinking about my friend's experience, I'm so grateful for Gay Uganda's great blog, his courage for speaking out and the dialogs he's entered into. Of course trying to count the ways I'm grateful for all the work Sokari at Black Looks does, I loose count. But I count first how she has helped to provide a voice for same gender loving people across Africa and has highlighted the real issues involved.

Just recently my friend in Kampala found out about Ryan White. He asked if I'd ever heard of him. Well, of course I had. Ryan died at age 19 in April of 1990. It's hard to believe that he's been gone almost as many years as he lived. Ryan was diagnosed with AIDS when he was just 13. He gained national notoriety in his fight to attend regular school like an ordinary kid. Something I love about kids is their highly developed sense of fairness. Anyone who's been around kids will know: "It's not fair!" is a common complaint. What was so extraordinary about Ryan White was his confidence in knowing he was right. That confidence allowed him to confront the taunts and vile rumormongering with compassion and truth. He taught Americans not to hate. Almost 18 years after his death Ryan White's story still provides a beacon of hope that prejudice can be lessened and people can be real.

Across the world courageous individuals have risked social isolation and abuse to announce their HIV+ status publicly. Their genuine faces make AIDS prevention more urgent and effective. They also provide voice for AIDS treatment programs. There are very real and lasting solutions being implemented in conjunction with the treatment of AIDS. In Rwanda TRACnet, a system of computer and mobile phone technology presages improvements possible in developed countries. So much has been accomplished, but there is still so much to do!

A friend sent me a link to Infinite Family an organization which allows people all over the world to become mentors for AIDS orphans in Southern Africa. I think it's great. The Web site has a short introductory video. One statistic jumped out at me: 75% of the households in Zambia are caring for orphaned children. All over Africa the care of orphans is a great burden.

The request I hear most often from community based organizations in Uganda is assistance for school fees. The need is so great that you can find many great ways to support organizations in providing school fees. I'm really a fan of community to community solutions. Ask around among your friends and I bet that one of them at least is involved with a program to assist children affected by AIDS world wide. Most of the orphaned children do not have AIDS. Some, of course, are in orphanages, but many more are being cared for by extended family. Providing assistance for school fees is an enormous help. School immediately changes children's lives for the better, and has so many long term benefits too. Life in Africa has a program for assisting with school fees. Kayiwa Fred's Kampala Junior Team too.

I have no money and feel overwhelmed. So if you're like me, we just have to be creative in figuring out ways to help. We must not forget the those suffering as a result of AIDS. Clearly one person can't do much, but we can all do a little. The many of us doing something adds up to a lot.

Sometimes when the talk turns to AIDS a speeches about personal responsibility come out. Personal responsibility does play an important part in slowing the spread of AIDS. Too often, however, the speeches seem designed as a rationalizations for not doing anything. The attitude is: "It serves them right to suffer." But even for those who feel that way, the numbers of people affected through no fault of their own is huge: women raped as part of armed conflict, HIV free children orphaned by AIDS, people infected by medical equipment, and on and on. AIDS is a human disease and like all illness affects people; people not so different from ourselves.

All of us can do a part to prevent the spread of AIDS, and to heal the terrible toll the disease takes in all of our communities. The theme of World AIDS Day in the UK is Respect and Protect: Together we can end HIV prejudice. Now more than ever I think: Yes we can!

Old Magazines

I'm one for half baked ideas, but never have been one for patience in baking them. I think that the Internet is so cool in the way that it's a medium for dialog. With the Internet I can open my mouth and let half baked ideas escape. But I still don't seem much good at baking them.

Longtime readers of this blog will know that I've been exploring the possibilities for regular people to make one, two or three others significant in our lives (for example here). One way to tackle really big problems like famine is to enter into dialog with those at risk of famine and together learn and invent ways to prevent it. My experiments in trying to follow through shows there are lots of pitfalls to this approach, or perhaps more accurately I'm just not very good at it. At any rate when it comes to money, I don't have much.

Money is useful. An online friend has been active in trying to find ways to support The Kampala Junior Team and has set up an blog for international supporters. There have been lots of individual supporters and it's interesting to see what people have done. Generally it seems most people eager to support are ones with little money to spare, so creativity reigns supreme. Indeed people have different strengths and connections and have managed to do some great things for the team.

An idea for what I could do popped into my head. More accurately I made a connection between a box of old magazines I'd seen in the barn and the importance of money for the KJT. The magazines are old Yankee Magazines. My parents were both New Englanders and I remember well the Yankee's arriving in the mail when whe lived in South Carolina. I also remember on trips to visit kin in New Hampshire passing the offices of Yankee. I don't know of another magazine quite like Yankee and haven't really looked at one since I was a kid. I checked on eBay and discovered there are some old editions for sale. And at the interactive Yankee Web site discovered that there are collectors of old issues.

I didn't know how many issues were actually in the box, and in fact had to locate the box in the first place--which turned into a story of its own involving a live raccoon. I was a bit disappointed to discover only 31 issues from the late 1960's and 1970. Still if I could sell all of them for $10 a piece that would be a nice contribution to the Kampala Junior Team. They are eagerly seeking sponsors for school fees as many of the children are orphans.

Part of the problem of baking this scheme is I don't really know how to sell stuff. But one of the upsides was thinking how interesting the contents of the old magazines is--at least interesting to me. For example the picture on the cover of the October 1968 issue shown here is a water color by beaTrix Sagendorph. Robb Sagendorph founded the magazine in 1935, Beatrix was an artist and provided art direction for the magazine for many years. Visually, there's lots of beautiful and fascinating stuff to talk about in those old magazines. In the same issue is an article by John Gould, "The quintessential Downeast storyteller". Some of the stories are just great. The art, the ads, the wonderful and fantastic stories, all make me think how fun it might be to share snippets of the old Yankees in a blog.

Ah, but connecting any sort of money making seems to escape me when it comes to blogs. A while back I had the idea of paper party hats as a useful fund raising activity and blogged about them in Hats for Health. I haven't posted there for over a year, but in the year I posted I raised a grand total of $15. Clearly if I attempt to raise money somehow using these old Yankee Magazines I've got to have a better plan for it than I did for those paper party hats.

Most people realise that our fates are intertwined with those of everyone else. But it's a real challenge to figure out what we can do to about the oppressive conditions so many people in the world face. My half baked ideas seem silly , even to me. But there is an earnestness behind them. I want very much to share with others and for others to share along. That's the only way we'll find ways to invent ourselves out of the mess we're in.

That reminds me of a song. Maybe you've heard None of Us Are Free? I first heard the song on Ray Charles' My World album. Wilson & Alroy's Record Reviews--a great resource about records--says the song was original material for that record. The song credits belong to Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, and Brenda Russell. That's quite a trio, but I've got no information on the background to the collaboration. Nonetheless the song is really great and has been covered by Lynyrd Skynyrd and Solomon Burke among others. This video of Burke's performance is a favorite. The chorus goes:

That none of us are free

None of us are free

None of us are free if one of us is chained

None of us are free

All the lyrics are worth reading, but I want to point to one more line:

And if we don't say it's wrong then that says it's right

Blog Day

Here's the deal with Blog Day:

BlogDay was created with the belief that bloggers should have one day dedicated to getting to know other bloggers from other countries and areas of interest. On that day Bloggers will recommend other blogs to their blog visitors.
With the goal in mind, on this day every blogger will post a recommendation of 5 new blogs. This way, all blog readers will find themselves leaping around and discovering new, previously unknown blogs.

Am I prepared? Heck no! But I was forewarned because I read Erik Hersman's White African blog and remembered that today is Blog Day seeing his post 5 Great African Blogs for BlogDay 2008.

These are my five picks:

White African
My heart's in Accra
Composing
Busoga Shining Light Association
Kampala Junior Team

I love blogs. I spend an hour or two everyday reading blogs. It is true that some of the blogs I read are American political blogs with big audiences. I'm something of a political junkie, but wouldn't really call any of those blogs favorites. Almost everyday I read something a blog that touches me deeply, such that I can't help but to feel affection for the bloggers. It's hard to pick favorites when there's a personal stake in it. Of course Blog Day really isn't about favorites anyway, but about discovery and broadening our social stake among people everywhere.

Probably anyone reading this blog already knows Ethan Zuckerman's My heart's in Accra. If not link there now. Zuckerman perhaps more than any other blogger embodies the ethos of Blog Day, the value we can gain from expanding from our narrow comfort zones from where everyone is more or less like us to discover and listen to others.

I'm not very technically savvy and was late to discover the Internet. It was all very cool when I did, except geek talk just seemed impossible to understand. Among the many virtues of the Zuckerman's blog is he's a geek who knows how to say interesting things about technology in ways ordinary people can understand.

There are too many great posts to choose from. A recent one WE Magazine provides a great introduction, especially if you're able to watch a video interview on your connection. There's a transcript at the same link so people with slower connections can read the interview.

I think it somewhat an advantage that I got online later than most. I'm old enough that electronic games weren't part of my growing up. In fact, I can remember the fascination transistor radios had when they were new. ATM machines still have a bit of a "what will they think of next" feel to me. So the possibilities the Internet opened up were quite startling to me. Zuckerman wisely warns about cyber-Utopianism, I think I caught a dose of that. But just surfing around and seeing some of the craziness provides an antidote of sorts. Nevertheless, the Internet changes things, and the exciting thing is that we get to decide even in small ways what sorts of difference will make a difference.

About the same time that I discovered Zuckerman's blog, I found Phil Jones. Phil has several blogs and other Internet sites he maintains. He links to them under the heading Synaesmedia at his blog Composing. Phil's posts are mostly links, sometimes with a short comment. Occasionally he writes longer essays, but always has something important to contribute.

Phil demurred at my calling him a "public intellectual" pointing out that most of his time and effort is engaged in his day job as a coder engaged in supply chain management. Still I've learned more from Phil about how the differences a world of people connected with communications technologies make than anyone else. I also love that he's a Brit living in Brazil. So I get look at Brazil I otherwise wouldn't.

At the end of the WE Magazine the interviewer asked him if he could have three wishes what they'd be? One of Zuckerman's wishes was this:

I think maybe my second wish was that everyone had someone who was emotionally relevant to them who lived in a very different place.

I've been corresponding over the Internet with my friend Nathan Magumba almost ever since I got online. We've never met in person, but we're good friends by now. Nathan has long been strived to be of service to his community. He founded a community based organization called the Busoga Shining Light Association. For a while I tried to convince him of the value of blogging. That didn't take, but recently without any prodding on my part took the plunge and started blogging. Check out Busoga Shining Light Association. One of the reasons I'm excited is now that he's talking online, it makes it easier for me to talk about our common interests too.

It is quite possible for people we meet online to be emotionally relevant. I haven't known Kayiwa Fred so long as I've known Nathan. Kayiwa is in Kampala and Nathan in Iganga. They've never met, except for the Internet. I think Kayiwa was really surprised when he found out from Nathan how long we'd been friends. While attending college Kayiwa is actively involved with youth football (soccer). Like Nathan Kayiwa really wants to find ways to contribute to his community in uplifting ways. He's discovered social media, even while like me finds it hard to understand most of the time. Still check out Kayiwa's blog Kampala Junior Team. From the links on the sidebar you can find other online ways to make connections.

A friend of Kayiwa's in Wales has started The KJT International Supporters Club. Kampala is a different place, and Snowdonia is different too. I've never been to Uganda. Now since I have good friends there I hope to be able to travel there one day. Many years ago when I was 17 I did travel to Wales. Zuckerman's first wish in that WE Magaizne interview is that people would have a chance to experience a place radically different from what their own like he was able when at just 20 he went to study in Ghana. He says:

And it really changed how I view the world in a very positive way.

Perhaps Wales wasn't so radically different from Western Pennsylvania as Kampala might be. Still it seemed far away to me then. Perhaps what travel changes most is to open up our imaginations to how complex and beautiful living is. We live in natural communities and in communities of people. Being in a different place makes it impossible to take our communities for granted--makes it hard anyway to. Travel is a very important form of education. The Internet makes travel more possible than ever before; if we make our stories available and if we are willing to listen to the stories of others. Ethan Zuckerman is right to think that makes all the difference.