Oh, and it seems that rumors of a heterosexual AIDS epidemic in the West were, well, exaggerated.

My godforsaken adolescence (18 in 1987, so just think) curses this lie, but at the same time, had AIDS always been thought exclusively a disease of what mainstream society thinks of as fringe, foreign, and even immoral and unhygenic--but "other" and presumably corruptive in any event, whatever the era's rationale was--then would anything have been done about it?

No, it wouldn't have. And I have a number of gay friends who now are thought of as ordinary neighbors and co-workers to the straight people around them, some living in rural, even Southern communities. This is not the South I remember. AIDS forced society to accept gays over time.

And also, AIDS, far from stopping people from fucking, actually gave people license to, and education about it. You can't just know you're supposed to use condoms. You're also to know when it's appropriate and when not. And how. That implies knowing a number of things that, in earlier days, would have been thought of by most as out of the ordinary. Now, we live in a time where my recent work is tame enough to be considered satire (if weak, admittedly) than smut.

To increase AIDS awareness it was necessary to educate everyone on what people really did or didn't do in bed. And as we now could tell ourselves that if we did X, Y and lubricate with Z, we could do pretty much everything that, in an earlier age when sex was more mysterious, if done might have been a lot more clumsy. And infrequent.

So was it a destructive lie? I'm not sure. Can a lie be constructive? I think of what Ozymandias does at the end of WATCHMEN. Can people only grow up and get their priorities straight when in terror? I'd like to think not.

Don't Let The Door Hit Your Ass On The Way Out, Hillary

Although given its size, I wonder how she could help it.

She is now not going to be the candidate. We knew this already, but now she does too.

So after months of undermining and attacking Obama, what does she do? Say she'd like to be VP.

But no, she and her husband have proven that they don't belong anywhere near national leadership now, and I hope Obama isn't stupid enough to let them back in. Especially given that I think Hillary is desperate enough to be president that she would arrange for his removal. After all, she's very good at waxing eloquent about fallen national martyrs. And such a legacy she'd have to uphold! The first black president. Why, she'd morph right into LBJ before you know it. In every way. Except perhaps the helping-the-poor part.

These are the people that hung Gore out to dry in 2000. The ones who did nothing about Bush except help him. Oh, and Bill's been fucking Gina Gershon as well.

Are you nostalgic yet? No?

Enough. The old Democratic party has shown what they are interested in: holding office and doing not one goddamn useful thing with it. Say goodbye to Billary.