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Did you know today is World Aids Day?!
I wanted to book today off and go canvassing by selling red ribbons and raise money for local AIDS organizations. After several phone calls though I found out that the red ribbon campaign is no longer happening. Seems like it was cancelled a couple of years ago due to lack of interest. It made me wonder if AIDS is an issue that has been swept to the back burner and is no longer a newsworthy item even at all. I mean how many times a year now do you hear anything at all about AIDS anymore? Be it some news item, or just in conversation with family, friends, in a classroom, at the office etc. We hear about (as we should) about cancer and other debilitating and terminal diseases all the time. In the news, posters on subways, on your ciggs pak there are warnings. Walks and marches etc going on… it’s in your face everywhere. And like I said so it should be. Parents try to teach their kids not to smoke etc. I wonder how many parents try to teach their kids about safe sex? I wonder sometime if kids in Jr. High or High School or even College kids these days even know about AIDS at all. Sure we hear news about how bad it is in Africa and some politicians are getting their photo opts by being there when the announcements are made that we are sending them some help. But what do we hear about what’s going on here? Or are we (the public) just lead to believe that there is a crisis in Africa and other Third World Counties and here in North America we have nothing or very little to worry about? Ok recently there were two news items about AIDS because one male and a female were charged with having unprotected sexual intercourse with someone and not telling them that they had AIDS. That’s just another of one hundred news items though that pass through a person’s mind in one day and will be forgotten by dinner time tonight. If not for those two recent news items I doubt anything would have been mentioned anywhere at all… except the very few lines that I heard on BT this morning just reminding people that today is World AIDS Day.
OK… I fully admit maybe I am more concerned then the average person about this topic because my brother passed away in 1996 due to complications aroused by being HIV positive and having full blown AIDS. Some of you have heard about me talk about him before. I talk about him a lot sometimes (especially now around World AIDS day) because I considered him a real true hero. You never heard my brother talk about dieing from AIDS. He talked about living with AIDS not dieing from. He refused to give up. And he refused to sit down or shut up. At the time when he found out he was HIV+ back in late 80’s there was very little help available for heterosexual people with AIDS. It was still thought of back then as a Gay disease. So Tom being the outspoken and opinionated type of person he was started getting in peoples faces and bring this situation into the forefront of people’s minds that needed to hear it. Even at the risk of being ousted and rejected by, friends’ peers and employers… he got out there and made sure he was heard. Eventually after a long stint as a volunteer with The PWA foundation they took him on as a paid outreach co-coordinator. He and others he organized went out to schools, prisons, drug rehab centers, communities groups etc and spoke about his (their own) own personal experiences and warned people about the dangers of unprotected sex or sharing needles etc. One of his last appearances ever was on World AIDS day 1995. He made it on to national TV as the first ever (known) heterosexual spokesperson and shared his story about how it can happen to anybody and how you can prevent it. He also spoke about how important it is if you have a friend or know someone who is stricken with AIDS how important it is to love them and teach them how like he always like saying “to live with, not die from” I still have the video provided to me by the studio where the show was done. I wish I could share it with all of you. Because not only will you meet a true hero… you will never forget again how important it is to be aware if AIDS and how important it is to keep spreading the message.
Peace and Love.
I wanted to book today off and go canvassing by selling red ribbons and raise money for local AIDS organizations. After several phone calls though I found out that the red ribbon campaign is no longer happening. Seems like it was cancelled a couple of years ago due to lack of interest. It made me wonder if AIDS is an issue that has been swept to the back burner and is no longer a newsworthy item even at all. I mean how many times a year now do you hear anything at all about AIDS anymore? Be it some news item, or just in conversation with family, friends, in a classroom, at the office etc. We hear about (as we should) about cancer and other debilitating and terminal diseases all the time. In the news, posters on subways, on your ciggs pak there are warnings. Walks and marches etc going on… it’s in your face everywhere. And like I said so it should be. Parents try to teach their kids not to smoke etc. I wonder how many parents try to teach their kids about safe sex? I wonder sometime if kids in Jr. High or High School or even College kids these days even know about AIDS at all. Sure we hear news about how bad it is in Africa and some politicians are getting their photo opts by being there when the announcements are made that we are sending them some help. But what do we hear about what’s going on here? Or are we (the public) just lead to believe that there is a crisis in Africa and other Third World Counties and here in North America we have nothing or very little to worry about? Ok recently there were two news items about AIDS because one male and a female were charged with having unprotected sexual intercourse with someone and not telling them that they had AIDS. That’s just another of one hundred news items though that pass through a person’s mind in one day and will be forgotten by dinner time tonight. If not for those two recent news items I doubt anything would have been mentioned anywhere at all… except the very few lines that I heard on BT this morning just reminding people that today is World AIDS Day.
OK… I fully admit maybe I am more concerned then the average person about this topic because my brother passed away in 1996 due to complications aroused by being HIV positive and having full blown AIDS. Some of you have heard about me talk about him before. I talk about him a lot sometimes (especially now around World AIDS day) because I considered him a real true hero. You never heard my brother talk about dieing from AIDS. He talked about living with AIDS not dieing from. He refused to give up. And he refused to sit down or shut up. At the time when he found out he was HIV+ back in late 80’s there was very little help available for heterosexual people with AIDS. It was still thought of back then as a Gay disease. So Tom being the outspoken and opinionated type of person he was started getting in peoples faces and bring this situation into the forefront of people’s minds that needed to hear it. Even at the risk of being ousted and rejected by, friends’ peers and employers… he got out there and made sure he was heard. Eventually after a long stint as a volunteer with The PWA foundation they took him on as a paid outreach co-coordinator. He and others he organized went out to schools, prisons, drug rehab centers, communities groups etc and spoke about his (their own) own personal experiences and warned people about the dangers of unprotected sex or sharing needles etc. One of his last appearances ever was on World AIDS day 1995. He made it on to national TV as the first ever (known) heterosexual spokesperson and shared his story about how it can happen to anybody and how you can prevent it. He also spoke about how important it is if you have a friend or know someone who is stricken with AIDS how important it is to love them and teach them how like he always like saying “to live with, not die from” I still have the video provided to me by the studio where the show was done. I wish I could share it with all of you. Because not only will you meet a true hero… you will never forget again how important it is to be aware if AIDS and how important it is to keep spreading the message.
Peace and Love.
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