Fun with Acronyms...
I wrote this article on the back of a dixie cup.
This week marked the beginning of yet another Lenten season where God fearing Christians all across the globe honor the sacrifice of the big JC by giving up mint chocolate chip ice cream for 40 days. A couple of years ago a movie came out starring Josh Hartnett called “40 days and 40 Nights”, in which Mr. Hartnett tries to give up sex for 40 days, making it to the tail end of day 40 before subconsciously reneging on the vow and providing the viewing public with one of the most bizarre dream sequences ever put on film. Why he was flying over a sea of titties and why that is supposed to be erotic rather than frightening we may never know. However, the fact that going 40 days without any sexual activity whatsoever is a fate worse than the gallows came across loud and clear. Now imagine this movie premise: A guy has to go without sex until he gets married or else he’ll get AIDS and die. Now apply that to all of Sub-Saharan Africa. You now know what the Bush administration thinks AIDS prevention is.
In 2003 the U.S. government created a plan called PEPFAR to help quell African and Caribbean nations undergoing severe AIDS epidemics. Over 5 years a total of $15 billion dollars are to be distributed; that is if congress appropriates all those funds. The great thing about government is that you don’t always have to do what you promise. So of the hypothetical 15 billion, a little over 8 billion will go towards treatment of individuals who are already HIV positive. At $1.6 billion a year that allows us to treat over 400,000 people, which is quite a lot until you realize that 25.8 million people have AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. That means we’re treating a whopping 1.6% (I was nice and rounded up) of infected Africans. And since there were 3.2 million new infections last year, I’d say that $1.6 billion ain’t gonna cut it.
If we took this years projected defense budget of 669.8 billion dollars and chopped off 15% of it to use for AIDS prevention, we could treat every HIV positive person in Africa. However, since we know the government would never spend its money on anything that didn’t reek of dysfunction and disaster, we must look to the future. What are we doing for AIDS prevention in Africa? Well, 20% of PEPFAR’s funds are distributed to HIV/AIDS prevention, which brings me back to the start of this article. In the legislation for PEPFAR it is mandated that at least 33% of all AIDS prevention programs go to groups who preach abstinence as the only way to avoid infection. Last year more money was spent on abstinence education in Africa than on the provision of condoms and sex education. Just for good measure, Bush made sure that 23% of the funds doled out last year went out to faith based organizations. In the process the administration stopped funding for two groups that had the gall to teach prostitutes about safe sex, which makes perfect sense considering how much Jesus hated hookers and prophylactics.
So what are we telling the people of Africa? “If you have sex with anyone before marriage you’re a dirty whore and will get AIDS because of it and be spurned by the Lord to the satanic barbeque that is Hell. If you already have AIDS, too bad, ‘cause we can’t help you. We’re too busy killing these Iraqis who have the nerve to want us out of their country. What? Hell no, you’re not getting any money. We only gave the poor bastards that got corn holed by Katrina a bunch of $2,000 debit cards and left them to wallow in the dirt. If we didn’t help our own people, then you sure as hell aren’t getting any cash. Enjoy a slow, horrifically painful and debilitating demise. Oh yeah, and you’re going to hell. Have fun.”
He didn’t exactly put it that way in the State of the Union address, but there was some old maxim about actions and words. I don’t think Bush has ever heard it.
I used very small print.
This week marked the beginning of yet another Lenten season where God fearing Christians all across the globe honor the sacrifice of the big JC by giving up mint chocolate chip ice cream for 40 days. A couple of years ago a movie came out starring Josh Hartnett called “40 days and 40 Nights”, in which Mr. Hartnett tries to give up sex for 40 days, making it to the tail end of day 40 before subconsciously reneging on the vow and providing the viewing public with one of the most bizarre dream sequences ever put on film. Why he was flying over a sea of titties and why that is supposed to be erotic rather than frightening we may never know. However, the fact that going 40 days without any sexual activity whatsoever is a fate worse than the gallows came across loud and clear. Now imagine this movie premise: A guy has to go without sex until he gets married or else he’ll get AIDS and die. Now apply that to all of Sub-Saharan Africa. You now know what the Bush administration thinks AIDS prevention is.
In 2003 the U.S. government created a plan called PEPFAR to help quell African and Caribbean nations undergoing severe AIDS epidemics. Over 5 years a total of $15 billion dollars are to be distributed; that is if congress appropriates all those funds. The great thing about government is that you don’t always have to do what you promise. So of the hypothetical 15 billion, a little over 8 billion will go towards treatment of individuals who are already HIV positive. At $1.6 billion a year that allows us to treat over 400,000 people, which is quite a lot until you realize that 25.8 million people have AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. That means we’re treating a whopping 1.6% (I was nice and rounded up) of infected Africans. And since there were 3.2 million new infections last year, I’d say that $1.6 billion ain’t gonna cut it.
If we took this years projected defense budget of 669.8 billion dollars and chopped off 15% of it to use for AIDS prevention, we could treat every HIV positive person in Africa. However, since we know the government would never spend its money on anything that didn’t reek of dysfunction and disaster, we must look to the future. What are we doing for AIDS prevention in Africa? Well, 20% of PEPFAR’s funds are distributed to HIV/AIDS prevention, which brings me back to the start of this article. In the legislation for PEPFAR it is mandated that at least 33% of all AIDS prevention programs go to groups who preach abstinence as the only way to avoid infection. Last year more money was spent on abstinence education in Africa than on the provision of condoms and sex education. Just for good measure, Bush made sure that 23% of the funds doled out last year went out to faith based organizations. In the process the administration stopped funding for two groups that had the gall to teach prostitutes about safe sex, which makes perfect sense considering how much Jesus hated hookers and prophylactics.
So what are we telling the people of Africa? “If you have sex with anyone before marriage you’re a dirty whore and will get AIDS because of it and be spurned by the Lord to the satanic barbeque that is Hell. If you already have AIDS, too bad, ‘cause we can’t help you. We’re too busy killing these Iraqis who have the nerve to want us out of their country. What? Hell no, you’re not getting any money. We only gave the poor bastards that got corn holed by Katrina a bunch of $2,000 debit cards and left them to wallow in the dirt. If we didn’t help our own people, then you sure as hell aren’t getting any cash. Enjoy a slow, horrifically painful and debilitating demise. Oh yeah, and you’re going to hell. Have fun.”
He didn’t exactly put it that way in the State of the Union address, but there was some old maxim about actions and words. I don’t think Bush has ever heard it.
I used very small print.