How AIDS Changed Gay Life in AmericaWritten by David F. Duncan
Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America. By John-Manuel Andriote. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1999. $30.00 The author states that this book will examine "both 'big picture' and its finer details in considering many ways AIDS affected nation's hardest hit community, gay men." He succeeds in presenting many telling details of that impact. We are introduced to personalities, informed about critical events, and acquainted with controversies that might have lain forgotten in old newspaper archive or fading memories if they werent collected in this book. My only criticism of this rich body of material is that it is poorly organized, especially with regard to chronology. The events covered in a single paragraph may skip forward and backward over a decade. Where author may disappoint reader is in his attempt to present "big picture." His historical claims read more like sound bites than serious analytic conclusions. When he asserts that AIDS activism brought about "the transformation of a disorganized collection of despised individuals into a self-affirming community and a full-fledged civil rights movement" and on a later page that "AIDS brought gay community as a community out of closet," he seems to totally overlook gay activism that was well under way before recognition of AIDS. His thesis is rooted in a picture of 1970s as an era characterized almost solely by gays closeted in a ghetto where unending promiscuous sexual activity continued until AIDS ended "party." This sort of broad sweep painting of all gays of 70s with same brush is poor reporting. Though author certainly has no such intent, it could even be taken as support of sort of puritanical agenda that sees AIDS as deserved outcome of an era of moral laxness, even as Gods judgement on homosexuals. It is true, of course, that those who were involved in "party" were at greatest risk but, as we all know, many who were not promiscuous became infected. Nor has promiscuity disappeared from either gay or heterosexual communities as a result of AIDS epidemic.
| | Bombshell - Almost obscene, info since 1987 and...Written by Ina Bliss
...people are still dying of all types of cancers, AIDS, muscle disorders, as you know very, very well. Why is it that public believes that 'funds have to be raised' to 'do research', if this conclusive information has existed for over 16 years??Can it really be that all our diseases are caused, or accelerated by parasites? And that they can simply be cured with one small piece of equipment along with widely available herb preparations? When I first heard about this, I was completely disgusted that these worms and larva reside inside of me. I have considered myself a healthy person. A doctor's visit lies so far in past that I cannot remember, when and where it took place. Then my mom in Berlin, Germany, was diagnosed with cancer and I began intense research. Just upon a simple search, one source that I have appreciated ever since, made most logical sense. Parasites that harbor other parasites, bacteria and viruses are culprits, and remedy is simple, yet entails some quite lengthy procedures, worse, longer one waits. Then again, why worry, at least nobody dies! I discovered things like 'there's seagull droppings in my table salt', 'all fruit in my fridge contain extremely toxic mold', 'the metal flatware I use makes me sick', and 'bathroom supplies me with several extra shots of carcinogens, several times a day'. The proof is in pudding: We make Prohpyl Alcohol in our bodies, due to extensive exposure to chemicals and metals. +++Congestive Heart Disease? Caused by 3 types of parasites. +++Diabetes? Caused by Pancreatic Fluke. +++Cancer, Alzheimer's, AIDS, Cystic Fibrosis..., you name it.
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