Abstinence Only Education, Teen Pregnancy, and HIV/AIDS

The greatest victim of George Bush's abstinence only education program are the children that he claims to be protecting. Teen pregnancy is the highest in the western world with 53 pregnancies in every 1000 girls aged 15-19. That's a little over 1 in every 20 girls. The number of teen pregnancies in the United States is almost three times that of Canada, England and France (about 20 in a 1000 or 1 in 50) and 17 times that of the Netherlands (3 in a 1000 or 1 in 333). All are western nations and all except the United States provide comprehensive sex education in public schools.

Now let's move on.

One half of all new STD cases are in people between the ages of 15-24. HIV leads all other STDs in % increase between 2000 and 2004 at 42% amongst teens. It, unlike many other STDs, becomes almost immediately re-transmittable and yet can show no symptoms for years. It may not even show up on blood tests for six months or more. It is transmittable and affects people of all races, all colors, all creeds, all relations, all ages, in all types of sex, at any point during sex, and the odds of getting it from a carrier remains the same regardless whether you have sex with them once or a hundred thousand times.

If you take condoms out of the hands of our young people, this is what happens. Through almost no fault of their own they will die. They may, and very likely will, infect others causing them to DIE. The spread of HIV is COMPLETELY stoppable. Condoms are cheap and 100% effective in this if used properly.

The Bush Administration has taken comprehensive birth control out of high school health class. It has taken condoms out of public schools. It has contributed to the stigma held by many teens about acquiring birth control. And silence only makes it worse.

Just imagine that a piece of latex about a millimeter thick can save your life.

I'll leave you with this to chew on...

This is All I Have to Say

Oh, and this.... HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA! McSame is suffering from advanced dementia! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Ahh, now I feel better.

Heading Back

Well, as you can tell from my last post, I've been feeling very random tonight. But, I think, in randomness there is a lesson to be learned. That lesson? I'll make sure to get back to you on that when I figure it out.

Regardless, or perhaps irregardless of that, I'm heading back tomorrow. That should be fun. A couple of days of rest and relaxation before getting back to the daily grind. I always find this time of year interesting. Not this year. So I suppose I should say that I nearly always find this time of year interesting or that I used to find this time of year interesting but now I don't. Damn, I need to digress.

I did a lot of new things this summer and they were a lot of fun, but I never really got around to thinking about myself, which is something I believe that everyone should do at least for a week every now and then. It's unfortunate too because I need to free up some more space in my active memory if you will. There's too too much bouncing around in there, as opposed to too much which upon retrospection seems about right. I'm not trying to be funny, I'm just being "funny". That's funny weird and not funny ha ha. Funny ha ha is running around the stage at graduation completely naked. Funny weird is doing it at a preschool. Isn't it odd that something that is funny weird upon thought is very funny ha ha. Go figure.

When heading back I like to think that I've accomplished something, and I have. But, this year the something that I have accomplished is not so much for the mental me as it is for others and in truth also the future me. That is to say, what I've done will benefit me in my future endeavors but not as much now. My mind is running a mile a minute and I don't like going into new things (or old things anew) in such a state. Hopefully over the next couple of days before everyone else arrives I can get my mental affairs in order. A sound mind is as much if not more important than a sound body.

Now I'm not saying that I'm unstable, not in the least. What I am saying is that I'm wandering aimlessly. For instance, it's 3:43 AM and I'm typing this for no reason instead of sleeping.

So, as I said way way back up at the top of this rambling mess, I'm heading back tomorrow. I'll enjoy a couple of days of quiet and hopefully be able to commit to stuff for more than ten minutes at a time afterward. We'll see.

FFF

A Word

Well, for this whole thing to be effective, and yes pointed, I'm afraid that I must in fact use more than just one word. The idea of "one word", not taken literally, as it never is, is in fact a stand in for I'd like to speak shortly or frankly about something. Honestly I'd love to walk up to someone, and you should try this too, tell them that I want to have a word with them, pull them to the side, say "ducksauce", and walk away. I think it would provide a powerful insight into the idea that much of language is based on inferred meaning and not on the actual literal content of its words. But I digress, to a completely different topic might I add.

I don't do "observational" pieces; I do however often do observational pieces. See the difference? No? Then it's a good thing I'm still here and in such a flaky mood. (Corn or frosted, I can't decide...) "Observational" pieces talk about events or settings or people. They are firmly rooted in the occurrences of my every day life. And, as I'm sure you would agree, my every day life is not something that makes good bedtime reading. Although, granted it would likely put you to sleep.

I do observational pieces. The no these things " " kind. I muse on life and the questions and answers that flow freely from the bored mind of a thoroughly randomesque mindset. For instance, I could talk about what I think about the DNC so far, as I have watched it extensively these past three nights. Hey, when it comes to life, I figure an informed person is an alert person. But the problem is that I don't think that's interesting at all. I don't care if you think along the same lines as me in such mundane areas. Oh it went well. Oh, it could've gone better. Oh, I don't know. Tra-la-la. Who gives a fuck. This sort of thinking is better left to tabloid news networks like Fox who kept interrupting their coverage for equally mundane things like weather reports and mindless and baseless commentary. Now that would be something to talk about. Something interesting. But, I've already said everything that I'm willing to say about that for tonight so I'll move on.

Tomorrow or the next day, or sometime in the near future, however I will speak about something that came to mind after listening to the DNC speeches tonight and that is HIV/AIDS. But again, I'm not going to go into that here and now.

So, what am I going to say?

Ducksauce.