AIDS

Limbaugh: You'll pry my foreskin from my cold, dead hands

Gabriel Winant — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:35:00 PDT

If you had to whip up a too-good-to-be-true story for the right-wing pundit class to freak out over, what elements would you include? There would have to be, of course, an element of command-and-control socialist-fascist invasion and regulation of the most private parts of our lives, in the name of some spurious "common good." But that alone is a little pedestrian nowadays, so you'd want to add a nice dollop of male sexual neurosis to really kick it up a notch. Then add just a hint of racial fear and beat to a froth.

Rubbers for the Pope!

Sarah Hepola — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 07:08:00 PDT

In a NYT op-ed on Sunday, Sudhir Venkatesh wondered where all the protesters have gone. With all the righteous anger up for grabs in our great nation, why aren't the mobs taking to the streets? Well, for one thing -- they all seem to be on Facebook.

What's the matter with Colorado?

Alex Koppelman — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:00:00 PST

Every state has to deal with the occasional stupid, embarrassing elected official now and again. Sometimes, though, it seems like one is getting hit with more than its fair share. This week, it's Colorado, where two state senators have done their best to cover their constituents in something other than glory.

Slipped through the cracks

Logan Scherer — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:47:00 PDT

No money, more problems: The recession has everyone fretting these days, but apparently more women than men are anxious about their economic state. According to a recent poll by the National Women's Law Center, 59 percent of women claimed they were "worried and concernd" compared to only 46 percent of men. The poll suggests men and women have different priorities: More women than men said the government should increase its role in helping people plan for retirement and its funding for childcare, and 77 percent of women want to see the government address the issue of pay equity.

Let us now praise Jesse Helms

James Hannaham — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 04:12:00 PDT

The death on July 4 of Jesse Helms, the polarizing North Carolina senator who bathed all forms of open-mindedness in the acid bath of his contempt, sent shudders of guilty relief through the spines of liberals everywhere. Few Americans care to imagine that anyone's death might bring them glee, and it is of course bad form to speak ill of the dead however little mercy the deceased may have shown to the hundreds of thousands of people who died as he denied funding for HIV/AIDS research.

McCain's lack of candor on reproductive rights

Joe Conason — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 03:41:00 PDT

"He's not who you think he is" is likely to serve as the Republican rap against Barack Obama, if and when the inspiring orator from Illinois secures his party's presidential nomination. Yet precisely the same complaint can and should be made against John McCain, who is neither as moderate nor as principled as his publicists in the press corps tell us.

"I am at the lowest end of all"

Lynn Harris — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 06:57:00 PDT

Violence against women and virulent HIV infection: Each one is bad enough without the other. But a new Amnesty International report shows that in rural South Africa -- a country where AIDS has reached epidemic proportions -- the two are inextricably and toxically linked.

Gang rapes and worse

Catherine Price — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 09:50:00 PST

As if recent developments in Kenya haven't been depressing enough, here's an update from Women's eNews about the effect that the post-election violence has had on women. It starts with the story of Elizabeth Wanjiru, a member of Kenya's Kikuyu ethnic group, who is married to a Maasai man. She claims that even before the election took place, he began beating her because he thought she would vote for the incumbent, President Mwai Kibaki, who is Kikuyu, whereas he wanted her to vote for the opposition candidate, Ralia Odinga. That's bad enough, but when Wanjiru's husband began to threaten to kill her if she did not leave, and she noticed that mobs were setting fire to their Kikuyu neighbors' homes, she decided that she needed to flee. So she took her three children, left her husband and set out for the ancestral home of the Kikuyu -- a place she'd never been, but where she hoped she'd be safe.

Male circumcision no help to women?

Tracy Clark-Flory — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:50:00 PST

The debate over the not-so-"simple snip" is becoming ever more complex -- and not just as a question of sexual pleasure or cultural mores but of preventing disease. Circumcision may drastically cut men's risk of HIV infection, but it doesn't appear to protect female sex partners, according to a new study. In fact, women face an increased risk of infection if they have sex with a recently circumcised man.

The roots of Kenya's upheaval

Ruthann Richter — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 03:19:00 PST

When Kenya erupted in post-election violence earlier this month, one of the flashpoints was in Kibera, Nairobi's notorious slum. Kibera is home to a million people, wedged tightly together in a sea of tin-roofed shanties. The neighborhood achieved star status in the film "The Constant Gardener," the fictional story of Western pharmaceutical greed gone awry. It also has played prominently in Kenyan national politics of late, as it is a stronghold for opposition leader Raila Odinga. Odinga claims that President Mwai Kibaki rigged the Dec. 27 elections in order to stay in power. When the dubious election results were announced naming Kibaki the winner, Odinga's supporters, including many in Kibera, took to the streets in violent protest and whole sections of the neighborhood were burned to the ground.

How would Barack Obama handle foreign policy?

Walter Shapiro — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:10:00 PST

Barack Obama sat down with Salon for a short interview about foreign policy Sunday night after holding a town meeting at the Grundy Center High School.

Will Bill's dough make trouble for Hillary?

Mark Benjamin — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:45:00 PDT

If Bill Clinton goes back to the White House with a new title in January 2009, there will be more than one fundraising juggernaut living there. Since leaving office in 2001, the former president has vacuumed in hundreds of millions of dollars for his William J. Clinton Foundation. Though the former president has declined to reveal the identities of his individual donors, public records reviewed by Salon reveal a partial picture of corporate foundations and the foundations of a network of wealthy individuals that have long fueled the Clinton money machine. Some of those same individuals are now among the top fundraisers for Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Middle age threw me a wicked curve

Peter Kurth — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 04:34:00 PDT

In 1968, when I was 15, my best friend and I swore to each other that we would never grow old. We even pricked our fingers and exchanged blood in the pact. True to his promise, Jon died at the age of 41.

Quote of the Day: Jenna Bush on condoms

Tracy Clark-Flory — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:15:00 PDT

Who would've thought: First daughter and rumored party-girl Jenna Bush apparently has ink running through her veins. The newly engaged 26-year-old recently sat down with Glamour magazine to talk about her upcoming young-adult novel, "Ana's Story: A Journey of Hope," about a young Latin American mother with HIV. Interviewer Sheila Weller, bless her heart, asks Jenna whether there's, uh, any conflict between the book's emphasis on the importance of condoms and her father's abstinence-only policies. Jenna responds:

AIDS crisis? What AIDS crisis?

Catherine Price — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 06:31:00 PDT

Remember how South Africa seemed as if it was finally addressing its HIV/AIDS crisis? Not so fast. It looks like the same man who insisted that HIV does not cause AIDS and supported the idea that beet root and garlic are more effective than antiretroviral medicines is at it again: According to the Independent," President Thabo Mbeki just fired the woman who was one of the biggest critics of the government's misguided approach.

The separation of church and non-state

Andrew Leonard — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 11:02:00 PDT

World Vision, writes Risto Karajkov in "The Power of N.G.O.'s: They're Big, but How Big?" is the largest nongovernmental organization in the world, with a $2.1 billion annual budget in 2006. (Thanks to iPienso for the tip.)

Anti-prostitution pledge required for AIDS funding?

Tracy Clark-Flory — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:58:00 PDT

A couple of weeks back we wrote about how the Bush administration has allocated two-thirds of funding for preventing the sexual transmission of AIDS in Africa to abstinence programs. (No matter how many times you say it, it never fails to amaze: Fighting AIDS with abstinence.) Well, surprise! It turns out it's not working so well, according to President Bush's chief advisor on HIV and AIDS. Speaking at the International AIDS Society conference in Sydney, Australia, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said: "For every one person that you put in therapy, six new people get infected. So we're losing that game, the numbers game."

Sex ed suppressed in India

Tracy Clark-Flory — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 15:10:00 PDT

For those of you feeling a little irony deficient today, check this out: India, the same country that gave birth to the Kama Sutra, is acting highly squeamish about the idea of sex education, Reuters reports today. This is hardly a new cultural contradiction (remember, conservatives recently took to the streets over a public kiss on the cheek) but one nicely illustrated by a battle between conservatives and the federal government, which is pushing for comprehensive sex education in the face of rising HIV infection rates.

Fighting AIDS with abstinence

Tracy Clark-Flory — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:00:00 PDT

Here's an article by erstwhile Salonista Michelle Goldberg guaranteed to get you hot under the collar. She details the forehead-smacking failures of the Bush administration's AIDS initiative in Africa -- most ridiculously, its failure to adequately promote condom use. You see, the administration has a preferred prevention method. Say it with me now: Abstinence. It might be funny, if it weren't so incredibly deadly.

Milk money

Carol Lloyd — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 08:50:00 PDT

When Oprah Winfrey profiled a young mother who was sending American women's excess breast milk to African AIDS orphans last year, the philanthropic project seemed immune to controversy. After all, these babies represented some of the most helpless and needy children on earth, and breast milk was supposed to offer them a six times greater chance of survival. The larger-than-life media-genic symbolism of it all -- American women giving their very bodily fluids to feed frail, desperate third-world foundlings -- made the project all the more irresistible. Jill Youse, a charming, self-effacing young woman from Minnesota with no background in activism, much less lactivism, had happened on the idea while trying to figure out a way to donate a freezer full of her own excess "liquid gold." When she spotted an online article about an orphanage in South Africa that wanted breast milk for AIDS orphans, she contacted it with her offer.