The Antiques Roadshow, Bruce version

We are taking our anniversary celebration on the road, so to speak. With friends and relatives spread across the country, some unable to travel, we are becoming party animals with an August, September and October celebration for our 50th wedding anniversary. Here's a selection of photos from the Lakeside event. Although the temperature was hot--90-ish--the breeze was great and we didn't have the predicted rain. Lake Erie presented a never ending show of color and fun, as we could hear the happy squeals and splashing of children right below the pavilion. It was a perfect day!

The Bruce siblings, Ohio, Indiana and California

The dessert table, brownies, cookies, iced tea, lemonade, and fresh fruit; another table had memorabilia

Families Bruce, Poisal, Poynter, Kelle, Doncevic--together in the same place, at the same time for the first time

Our children, all of whom have been Lakesiders from a very young age

Dinner at Hotel Lakeside

The Tuesday Wellness Seminar featured Rod Crane President/CEO of Ohio Medical Transportation (MedFlight of Ohio). He discussed medical transportation services that may be accessed from home, community, other states and international locations.

After the program, we and the Cranes went to Hotel Lakeside for dinner. They are members of our church.

Tea party groups plan Arizona rally against illegal immigration

This rally will be held on private property with private security in support of Candidate J.D. Hayworth, a former congressman turned conservative radio commentator (running against McCain) and in support of governor Jan Brewer on Sunday August 15. The Republican primary is the 24th. Leave long arms and rifles in your car.

'Tea party' groups plan Arizona rally against illegal immigration

Martin Luther King, Jr. - I Have a Dream

It seems that some leftists (Media Matters, Newscorpse) are unhappy that Glenn Beck is sponsoring a Restoring Honor gathering in Washington DC on August 28 because that's the anniversary (1963) of the Martin Luther King, Jr. "I have a dream speech." I seriously doubt that anyone, especially Beck, knew this was a "sacred day" on which other events could never be held. There are wonderful and moving passages in this speech, about which everyone should be reminded. Especially it speaks to Americans who have something coming due to them that the government has taken away in the last 100 years of Progressivism, which would pretty much be Beck's audience.

"In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds.""

Our current administration is in the process of bankrupting this and the next several generations if we don't stop them. MLK quotes many writers and sources in this speech from Lincoln to Isaiah to America the Beautiful. But the promissory note passage is, I think, the most powerful, given our current situation. We're not only getting a bad check, but we're going to prison for trying to cash it.

It's not easy to get space in Washington to hold an event. In fact, they limit the port-a-potties according to the number of buses coming. So if you're using public transportation, bicycle or walking, don't drink too many fluids.

Washington DC was built in a drained swamp (these days we call them wet lands), and the swamp is attempting to reclaim the land.

American Rhetoric: Martin Luther King, Jr. - I Have a Dream

Citing the 1939 Morgenthau quote

Sometime ago I blogged here about tracking down a 1939 Morgenthau quote that was going around the Internet, and I found Alan Caruba. There were a number of comments, some disbelieving. Another reader, Jared Nourse of Williams College, class of 2011, contacted me by e-mail with additional information:

"I was recently browsing the web for the 1939 Morgenthau quote and came across your blog post of Feb 2009, which motivated me to look into the question further. I'm sure you've long since come to terms with the mystery, but I uncovered the full language of the original quote in a scholarly article, which sets to rest some of Anonymous' unease with the quote.

Since your blog is the first result for a google search on "henry morgenthau quotes," I thought you might want to post a final update that includes the full language. Here it is:

[U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr.]: No, gentlemen, we have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong, as far as I am concerned, somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises…

But why not let’s come to grips? And as I say, all I am interested in is to really see this country prosperous and this form of Government continue, because after eight years if we can’t make a success somebody else is going to claim the right to make it and he’s got the right to make the trial. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started.

Mr. Doughton: And an enormous debt to boot!

HMJr.: And an enormous debt to boot! We are just sitting here and fiddling and I am just wearing myself out and getting sick. Because why? I can’t see any daylight. I want it for my people, for my children, and your children. I want to see some daylight and I don’t see it…

—Transcript of private meeting at the Treasury Department, May 9, 1939, F.D. Roosevelt Presidential Library

Horwitz, Steven. "Great Apprehensions, Prolonged Depression: Gauti Eggertsson on the 1930s." Econ Journal Watch 6.3 (2009): 313-36. Web.10 Aug 2010.

He notes that Folsom cites the transcript as well.

Best,

Jared Nourse"

Thanks, Jared, I'm posting your e-mail with your permission. I always appreciate a good citation (paper would be better), although if Jesus Christ himself said it, an FDR true believer would not be swayed.

Let's hope there is someone of intelligence and character left within the Obama administration who will take him aside and explain the facts to him. Unfortunately, I think it is Obama's intention and desire to ruin the country financially, so he has no reason to change direction.

What is a Socialist and why is no one worried?

"While earlier generations of Americans understood the word [socialism] to describe a political system that coincides with the diminution of personal and economic freedom, too many Americans hear the word and simply think of it as an alternative economic system. They think Europe, with its pretty buildings and, until recently, high standard of living.

These same Americans do not think of the USSR and the Gulags, or the Nazis and the concentration camps, or the Norks and their concentration camps, or the Cubans and their political prisons, or the Chinese and their political slave labor. All of those, Americans would say, were communist, which is different, never mind that it’s not.

I can already hear some of you saying right now that Americans are proving, with their hostility to the Obama/Democrat agenda, that they hate socialism. But I’m talking semantics. They’ll say they hate “Big Government,” or taxes, or government inefficiency, or too much government spending, but they will be utterly blase about “socialism.” The word has lost its power. The underlying concepts may bother Americans, but to say Obama is a socialist probably has as much meaning as to say he eats potatoes."

Bookworm Room » What if they gave a socialist party and nobody cared?

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

If I ever saw Breakfast at Tiffany's, a 1961 movie based on Truman Capote's novella by the same name, I have no recall of having seen a single scene--not even the iconic little black dress and the long cigarette holder adorning Audrey Hepburn who plays Holiday Golightly (Holly). It was last night's offering at Hoover here in Lakeside.

I'd call it a dark, dark film, with endlessly repeating scenes of smoking, drinking to excess, hopping in and out of taxis, climbing in and out of windows next to fire escapes, and losing keys. And it's the old, old fairy tale of a young girl who constantly needs to be rescued by older, and less lovely men, men of questionable intentions but mostly men wanting her sexually and willing to pay for it.

It's a story of a man and woman who in the end do fall in love, but who in the beginning are both kept by the older and wealthier as sex interests as they pursue their "dreams." Holly wants to reinvent herself from an Okie teen-age, step-mom married to an older farmer to a glamorous party-girl New Yorker on the prowl for a wealthy husband. Paul (George Peppard) is a kept man by an older, wealthy married woman (Patricia Neal who died this week). Hepburn, who looked anorexic in so many films, look healthier and heavier in this film; Neal was only about 3 years older but was swathed in heavy capes and jackets, maybe to hide a pregnancy, or just to look less attractive.

Until you see a 50 year old film where the drinking and smoking is so over the top it is distracting, and a Caucasian impersonates a cariacature of another race (Mickey Rooney plays a stereotypical buck tooth, screaming Japanese landlord) you forget how far we've come in "correctness,"--thankfully. Also, you see how the strong, capable female film characters of the 1930s and 1940s fell off the pedestal in the 1950s-1980s films where they seem to be perpetual sex toys with no brains or ambition except to meet Mr. Right or Mr. Money bags.

Capote apparently wanted Marilyn Monroe for the part--a poor girl in real life who changed her name and made good through her sexuality. It might have been a good choice, because I had trouble translating Audrey Hepburn into this character.

And I'll always be mad at her for dumping the no-name cat out in the rain; yes, I know it was just a movie and it all turns out well in the end, but can you trust a fictional air-head who does that?

Blaming Bush Doesn’t Create Jobs, Nancy

"Today’s report shows our teachers, police officers, firefighters, and nurses are still feeling the worst of the Bush recession.": Nancy Pelosi. Does anyone believe this blame Bush stuff? They sound like children. When the government "invests" it takes money from people who actually do.

Remember in November.

Morning Bell: Blaming Bush Doesn’t Create Jobs | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.

The toilet is closed

Dan Cornwall, the Alaskan Librarian on my bloglist, had a photo of an orange, hand made sign: "Dan Moller Cabin and Toilet closed until further notice," so I asked Google, "Who is Dan Moller?" Well, wouldn't you want to know--I mean if you were hiking in Alaska this might be important. So here it is--all you need to know about the Dan Moller Cabin. It was built in the 1930s by the CCC and you can stay there (when not closed) for 2 nights at $35/night. But it's pretty primitive; although many people lived this way in the 1930s without the luxury of propane, garbage bags and fire extinquishers.

Water is available from a nearby stream, uphill from the cabin. Treat all water before using. Bring your own sleeping bags, sleeping pads, cooking stove, lantern, pots, pans, plates, utensils, food, toilet paper, garbage bags, fire extinguisher and fire starter. This cabin contains a wood stove. Wood is not provided, so you must bring your own if you wish to use the stove. Cabin is heated by a propane wall furnace. Propane is supplied. Bears frequent the area.

But I still don't know who Dan Moller was, so I keep checking and finally find a guide book that tells me he's the guy who laid out the Dan Moller Trail in the 1930s. Whoop! That's not much to go on.

The cabin's logs are rotting so they will build a new one--ADA accessible. How the disabled get there may be another story. From the guide book it looks like an 1800 ft. upward climb on the Dan Moller trail. It is located three and one-half miles southwest of Juneau on Douglas Island. Access by 3 mile trail on Pioneer Street off Cordova Street, and at the end of Jackson St. above Blueberry Hills subdivision in West Juneau.

Lakeside Week 8

There was supposed to be a sailing regatta today but there is zip, nada, zilch wind. [Update: They finally got off.] My husband's gone down to watch, but I don't think anything is going on. If he could find a partner he was going to try doubles. His motto is (because he comes in last) he's way ahead of the guys who didn't enter! Good attitude for someone who took up sailing at 65+.

Speaking of sailing partners, we really enjoyed the send-off of the Lakeside Leadership Academy interns Thursday evening. Grace Kelmer who was my husband's sailing partner when she was in middle school gave us an invitation. Grace is the Cultural Arts intern and is a lifelong Lakesider. She attends college at Illinois Wesleyan in Bloomington, IL, is fluent in German, and an accomplished cellist. This was the third year of the program, so if you have a young person looking for summer internships next summer, check this one out. Most of this year's class had no prior knowledge of Lakeside.

I must say I got a little nostalgic and melancholy as I listened to the presentations of the 9 interns--hospitality, environment, finance, marketing, human resources, event planning, and eduction. They were all so incredibly talented and hard working, good speakers, lavish in their praise of their mentors and sponsors and fellow interns. One can feel good that young people like this will be going out into the work world soon, even if they choose grad school, but one can also feel like a "has been" and think about missed opportunities along the way.

Last night's guest performer with the symphony was Dmitri Levkovich, pianist. Born in the Ukraine and a citizen of Canada, he got a standing ovation (and provided a nice encore) for Concerto No. 25 in C Major by Mozart. I must say, that although I know little about pianos, the new Steinway is making everything sound brighter, sharper, and clearer. On the walk home we enjoyed the many homes decorated for "Light up Lakeside."

Ouch! Now that hurts!

We had our summer house sprayed for spiders yesterday--perhaps the second time this season. Now the windows will need to be washed again. But, here's the big news. The owner of the spray company didn't do the application this time. Apparently, the day before he was at a job and a dog bit him in the scrotum and he had to have stitches! So an assistant came out to our place because the owner will be laid up for awhile.

Dog bites are serious, folks. And remember this word from a former veterinary medicine librarian who has seen the photos of torn up faces of children--ALL DOGS WILL BITE. Don't ever encourage young children to pet a dog in the park or on a walk, even if the owner assures you it's OK. Most dog bites are by young male dogs, owned by young males, and the victims are most often male children.

Made in China--guest blogger Nelson

Recently I came to the railroad crossing on the Lowell Park Road on the way to Dixon, Illinois. The gates were down, the red lights flashing and presently a long freight train came through heading west toward the Mississippi River. Every flatbed held a Chinese container, empty and heading back home to be refilled and shipped again.

Factories close, people are let go and the economy slumps. And the reason started with greed.

I worked for a Mattel company in Orange County, California in the early 1970s and I can recall that one Christmas there was a stevedore's strike that prevented the freighters from coming into the San Pedro docks. Mattel was going mad, realizing that if they couldn't get the ships in and unloaded in time for Christmas, their profits would slump.

And why were these ships loaded with Mattel toys? Because Mattel had found that they could have them made much cheaper in Japan than in the US. Some might call that good business for them to go overseas; I call it greed.

And later, when the Chinese came into the picture, Mattel had toys made there. . .which meant that if any other toy manufacturer wanted to compete, they would have to go to China too.

I am appalled, horrified by this but maybe, if I were in the manufacturing business, I would have done the same thing. I hope not, but making money becomes a terrible obsession sometimes.

The problem is that this going to China for the cheapies has had a reverse effect. As more companies have closed here and opened in China, the local economies have staggered and fallen. if that nut-and- bolt maker in Rockford has to close, the people he had working for him have to get other jobs or do with less. The result - and I see this every time I go to Rockford - street after street of vacant factories; which has meant a loss of the tax base, increase in crime and fewer city services.

It used to be I would refuse to buy anything made in China. I cannot do that anymore because to refuse Chinese goods would mean I wouldn't be able to buy a thing.

BP's 20 billion--Obama was snookered by his inexperience?

This is flying around the internet in viral form, and I'm no expert on the figures, nor is the person who sent it. This piece is about BP's escrow account to compensate Gulf businesses. It's been posted, and reposted on various forums and blogs. So I googled to see where it might have originated, and found the earliest form (it gets revised as it moves along like most virals) by Dick Miller in the Savannah paper on July 1, 2010. I can't determine if it is his own work, although he has appeared in other op ed columns.

BP dupes the president

It seems a miracle that our beloved leader was able to convince BP to establish a $20 billion slush (oops, escrow) fund to compensate those hurt by the ongoing oil plume in the Gulf of Mexico. After all, he had no constitutional power to force them to do so; so had to resort to Chicago-style negotiating.

But, let us take a closer look at the effect on BP's finances:

1. BP will establish a $20 billion fund, but will pay only $7 billion into it during 2010.

2. BP is a British corporation, but has a very large operating entity in the U.S.

3. By generally accepted accounting principles, BP must book the entire $20 billion expense in the year accrued. Therefore, they will book a $20 billion expense in 2010, reducing their U.S. tax liability by $7 billion.

4. Our dear leader also convinced this massive corporation to show their concern for the "small people" by withholding dividends to their shareholders for the last three quarters of 2010. This reduces their outward cash flow by about $7.5 billion, including approximately 40 percent of that amount to U.S. citizens. Assuming the Bush tax cuts will survive through 2010, the U.S. Treasury will lose another $450 million in taxes on that amount. We won't even discuss the effect on the U.S. economy.

Let us review the results:

BP Cash Flow:

Escrow funding ($7 billion)

Dividend saving $7.5 billion

Tax savings $7 billion

Net favorable cash flow :

$7.5 billion

US Treasury Tax Receipts:

BP Corporate income tax ($7.5 billion)

BP Shareholders ($0.45 billion)

Net unfavorable tax receipts ($7.95 billion)

I guess we really should expect this. After all, our dear leader is the most inexperienced man in any room he walks into.

DICK MILLER

Savannah

HT Murray

Update: According to the Washington Post, hardly a right wing spoof, the U.S. taxpayer may get hit even harder by the deal between Obama and BP (one of his biggest contributors going way back to his Senator years).

Using Spike Lee's script

Neo Neocon remembers that speech: "Ya been took! Ya been hoodwinked! Bamboozled!" The words Spike Lee put in Malcom X's mouth in the movie about Malcom X. She says now Obama uses that theme, in the campaign and on the continuous trail, and it's not lost on Black audiences. He's a race baiter.

'CBS Evening News' Anchor Couric Ridiculed Palin from Day One; Mocks Son’s Name | NewsBusters.org

Sorry, guys, as much as I think Katie isn't the right person for the nightly news job, I didn't find this "raw" footage damning. She's self-deprecating, and jokes. She chats like a hundred other women I know, but she's respectful. How many of us knew of or heard of Wasilla, or mooseburgers before Sarah Palin? Give it a rest. Katie did a poor job on her critical Palin interview which suffered from editing over which she may have not had control, but this video tells us nothing. Not even MSM or journolist bias.

'CBS Evening News' Anchor Couric Ridiculed Palin from Day One; Mocks Son’s Name | NewsBusters.org

Gisele Explains Mandatory Breastfeeding Comments

Well, she sure got her name out there, didn't she? Nothing like making a really stupid statement, declaring it should be the law, and then saying it's just a personal opinion. Did she have an opinion on breast feeding before she had a baby? Maybe not. Hopefully she'll do early weaning--a 3 year old attached to mom's chest is a bit over the top. At least she provided a little relief from the non-stop Clinton wedding coverage. If I never see that dress again, or see George Stephanopulos swoon over the dance again, I will be grateful.

My grandmother breastfed all nine of her babies, and thought anyone who didn't bottle feed if she could was crazy. In her case, breastfeeding was practical and safe (she was blind), but I doubt if it was convenient.

Gisele Explains Mandatory Breastfeeding Comments | NBC Los Angeles

"Mission Accomplished:" President Obama's Iraq Withdrawal Speech

He's been claiming mission accomplished on the economy off and on since he entered office, but this one was reminiscent of Bush's speech early in the Iraq War. What makes this one different is he can only keep this "campaign promise" because Bush's surge worked, and Democrats fought it, including Senator Obama. Also, the war had quieted down so much because of the surge that even in 2008 you rarely heard Obama bring it up. It was a non-issue by the time he was getting close to the White House. And if Democrats had gotten on board and hadn't given aid and comfort to the enemy, we probably would have been out years ago.

President Obama's Iraq Withdrawal Speech: 'Mission Accomplished 2'?

From Bush's speech: Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country. In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment — yet it is you, the members of the United States military, who achieved it. Your courage — your willingness to face danger for your country and for each other — made this day possible. Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.

Obama will not exactly be "withdrawing" all troops, 50,000 are staying. I guess war is over when the guy in power says so, . . . unless the guy is President Bush.

Week seven at Lakeside

This week I'm taking two very different art classes. The first offered by Rusty Levenson is on art conservation. I've taken this class before, but it's so interesting and her clients and projects change, so it's always interesting. A background in chemistry and art history are essential, as well as the patience to go through apprenticeship, internship and possibly a residency requirement. But the perks--traveling around the world and meeting fascinating people--are good.

The second class I'm taking at the Rhein Center is Portrait Sketching. In any art class I take, I'm usually the best on Monday, but the same on Friday and everyone else has passed me up. But today there was a woman in the class who could have been teaching. She was fantastic. Maybe that means I can be better on Friday?

We had some great music over the week-end. The American Tenors sang Friday night to a very appreciative audience, and Pointe of Departure Ballet with the Lakeside Symphony performed on Saturday. On Sunday we had the big Hotel Lakeside Ice Cream Social and enjoyed the music of the Genoa American Legion Band. My husband helped with the Kids' Sail program, and 126 children participated, which I think is a record. The weather was perfect for sailing.

The Mouse Island sail boat race was Saturday, and my husband's sailing partner of a few years back, Grace, took first place. She's now 20. Today was the Lakeside Triathalon, and I saw the runners going past our cottage. I think biking and sailing was also involved.

I took the Friday tree walk again--took it last year. I always learn a lot. I think there's a few trees we'll be saying "good-bye" to soon--like the ash trees which are slowing succumbing to the emerald ash borrer, which arrived in Michigan in 2002, and a lot of our silver maples are nearing 70 or 80 years old, and they do not enjoy a long life although they grow quickly and create shade.

Who murdered the vets?

Yesterday at the Women's Club book sale for 50 cents I picked up a signed copy of "The Key West Reader: The best of Key West's Writers 1830-1990." Published in 1989, and edited by George Murphy a resident and writer of Key West. It's a very interesting collection by known and unknown (to me) American writers, such as John James Audubon, Robert Frost, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and John Hersey.

I've never been particularly fond of Hemingway's fiction, but the non-fiction accounts of the Labor Day 1935 hurricane (category 5) that killed over 400 people in an area with a population of a thousand or so in this book are stunning. Every governor and city mayor of the gulf states should be required to read this. If Louisiana's state and local officials knew this story and how bad FDR looked for sending unemployed and mentally addled WWI veterans to their certain death in a hurricane, maybe the outcome of Katrina would have been different. Or not. Hemingway disliked FDR intensely, so Democrats probably don't read him. This is from HNN account:

"Shortly after the natural disaster had occurred, writer Ernest Hemingway was contacted by the editors of New Masses to write an account of the storm from an insider's perspective. Hemingway's response was the article, "Who Murdered the Vets?: A First-Hand Report on the Florida Hurricane," published September 17, 1935, just weeks after the event. Although billed as a personal account, in reality it was an outraged demand for accountability for the needless death of the veterans. A hostile tone was established within the first few lines. "Whom did they annoy and to whom was their possible presences a political danger?" Hemingway asked. "Who sent them down to the Florida Keys and left them there in hurricane months?" Hemingway presented the veterans not merely as murdered but almost as though they had been assassinated for someone's personal political gain or simply that they were disposed of as an unnecessary burden to the public after courageously serving their country.

The left will always blame Bush for damages and deaths during Hurricane Katrina because they can't face up to the Democratic controlled administrations of Kathleen Blanco, the governor of Louisiana, and Ray Nagin, the mayor of New Orleans, who were in charge of the first line of defense. Presidents through FEMA then send in aid. Like FEMA hasn't done for the people of Ohio after its June tornado which destroyed a town (too white, too rural and too small to matter). Here's some background on the veterans from the Veterans' Memorial page:

"Unemployed WW-I veterans staged hunger marches and demonstrations in several cities, but the most famous was the Bonus Expeditionary Force in Washington, D.C., in June, 1932. A WW-I bonus law was passed in 1922, but vetoed by the President. In 1924, Congress overrode the presidential veto and gave every veteran a certificate payable in 1945. The nation entered the depression and in 1931 the vets demanded to be paid the bonus early. In June, 1932, about 15,000 veterans descended on Washington to convince the Senate to pass the bill. They were unsuccessful and finally President Hoover chased the "bonus marchers" out of Washington with bayonets and tear gas. Some say this action "put Roosevelt in the White House." Anyway, FERA was created in May, 1933 and various work programs and camps were established throughout the country. The events leading to the presence of the veterans in the Matecumbe work camps followed this scenario."

Reminds me of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study

One of the most famous violations of human rights is the U.S. government's Public Health Service study of poor black men infected with syphilis which went on for 40 years and the researchers continued to study the effects of the disease even after penicillin was invented which could have cured them.

Now, fast forward from 1972 to 1993, to another deadly disease, and a "data set" made up this time primarily of poor black women. The WIHS, Women's Interagency HIV Study, (pronouced WISE) has resulted in 440 published research papers with a data base that can be mined for many more to determine the affects of HIV on (poor minority) women.

The population of 2625 women is 60% black and 27% Hispanic; less than 1/3 are employed; 2/3 report a history of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. These women have a high smoking rate, high crack cocaine use, high alcohol and illegal substance abuse rate; they have numerous co-morbidities not realted to HIV such as cardiovascular disease, liver disease, cancers, cognitive disorders, and depression.

I've poured through the report, both as summarized in the July 21 issue of JAMA and the on-line site, and the newsletters (most very dated and containing recipes and weight tips on portion control) the participants receive. Through anti-retroviral drugs AIDS is no longer a fatal disease. This clinical study does not treat the women; it refers them for treatment. It offers them money for participation, child care for attending, transportation help, workshops, phone call reminders, and for a select few, a seat on the advisory board.

Well, whoop! Double whoop! Pardon me if I'm not impressed. If all participants were handed the pills and medical staff watched them take it (they do this in methadone clinics), and they were then in remission (there is no cure, but there is life extension), where would the studies be? Instead of being an HIV/AIDS study, and I think the women originally believed they would be treated, not just studied, it has become a data set for researchers (just like the Tuskegee study) for studying poverty, substance abuse, child rearing, and other diseases that may put these women at risk. It's also a study on why people may not follow doctor's orders or follow through on drug therapy--but at the cost of their own lives.

My question is this: How did a disease that began in a tiny demographic made up of privileged white men with higher than average education and income, become the scourge of the poor and black? Why, with 12% of the population, are blacks so affected, and black women? Ten years ago you could talk about "down low" sex, the practice of gay black men bringing the disease home to the wife/girlfriend and then to the children. But these days, that has become politically incorrect to even raise the issue. So you're left to your own devices by this study, JAMA (the American Medical Association's journal) the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, NPR, and any broadcast media, because they certainly won't tell you the truth.

Women's Interagency HIV Study