The second I saw the front page of Sunday's Times my jaw dropped. AIDS PATIENTS FACE DOWNSIDE OF LIVING LONGER the headline screamed. Even though I quickly knew what they meant (the topic of my cocktail-thriving HIV-positive friends' lifespans had just been on my mind), I couldn't believe what an insensitive choice using "downside" was. Would a similar headline be atop a story about the complications associated with living longer with cancer, diabetes or heart disease? (SEDENTARY DIABETICS FACE DOWNSIDE OF LIVING LONGER*) Just when I thought I was being hypersensitive I found that I was not alone in my incredulousness. I happened to stop by my high school friend turned feminist scribe Ilyka Damen's blog and found she had already written a scathing, point-by-point analysis of the article that she describes as callous, inept and inaccurate (You're Right! They'd Be Better Off Dead!). Needless to say, her stab at the Grecian Formula-ed elephant in the room was my favorite part:
NYT: The ... researchers, defend the slow pace of research as a function of numbers. The first generation of AIDS patients, in the mid-1980s, had no effective treatments for a decade, and died in overwhelming numbers, leaving few survivors to study.
Ilyka: Yeah, and about that. See, I wouldn't call that so much "a function of numbers" as I would "a failure of public health," for which failure older people with AIDS are now paying the price. THERE, fuckhead. There's your fucking story.
Larry Kramer would be proud.
*Ilyka's hilarious example
2 comments:
thank you. amused by your site, yet, i'd also glanced over this article and was left with the recognition of the greatest disease in relation to this slight -- the rampant carcinogenic known as ignorance and the paltry notions of actual philanthropy that come to do very little as in the midst of scripted lies, deplorable edu-tainment, septic foundations, and inexcusable consumerism driven by madison avenue rubbish -- very little is genuinely accomplished -- if one counts anything removed from a simplicity that is glued to materialism. there you have the consistent slights and a bandwagon on which a gaggle of faggots also gleefully board....and so information is juggled and muddled to perpetuate fallacy removed from potential. and so continues the balancing act of lies.
enjoy your week -- i couldn't agree more with "there's your fucking story" -- as so many stories are missed by playing the pathetic "four seasons" game.
Bravo. Good catch, I hope this hits the blogs with a fury.
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