AIDS

The cool kids in town brandish their (RED) gear, because the only way you can get the average american to contribute money to a noble cause is by completely bastardizing the entire concept with shallow products. If you are such a social crusader, why not feed money to the right organizations? [Important interjection: Giving money to AIDS research and prevention is a good thing.]

AIDS funds for the parts of Africa hit hardest with HIV/AIDS are essentially wasted. On the same level, in the same villages and towns, the lovely christian missionary preaches abstinence and the evils of condoms. Well there are two things wrong with that. 1. Sex is natural and impossible to prevent in human beings in any culture in any region of the world, and 2. Condoms are the affordable, plentiful, direct method for the prevention of AIDS transmission.

These two items work with each other in a crippling negative fashion. So when the christ-o-fized person decides that he/she is not going to partake in abstinence because it seems to work against the very foundation of our species biologically, they will not use a condom because Jesus said not to. This makes me cringe, knowing that it perpetuates the ignorance to these levels. Hell, on a similar note, a woman called into Talk Sex with Sue Johanson asking if she could become pregnant from swallowing sperm. You read correctly, in fact that was my response when I heard the question: "you have serioulsy got to be fucking kidding me."

Here's whats wrong with the entire clusterfuck: People are not given any sort of education on the matter. We may think that it is readily available because maybe most of us know the score with AIDS prevention and general sexual health issues, but it isn't. Jesus Christ does not make a good spokesperson for AIDS prevention. Jesus Christ does not make a good advocate for any sexual health practice. The only thing he is good at promoting might be some salt packed fish, stale bread, and some good red wine. Perhaps Australian Shiraz?

But getting back to the main point. (RED) is the popular trendy face to typical american pity for other people. But if you want to contribute majorly to AIDS relief, find a better charity. Ironically the best ones are run by Catholic nuns. They keep less than 1% of the money brought in, and the rest goes to the cause at hand. If you check out websites such as Charity Watch run by the American Institute of Philanthropy, you will see that (RED) doesn't show up at all.

Ahh you know everything is so far up the creek right now, no amount of e-bitching can do a bit of good. But, I'm glad you all could read it anyway.

J.