Voula Papachristou Booted Off Greek Olympic Team

Under most circumstances, public urination earns the offender a ticket. But, if you do it in front of the ladies auxilary it's a much bigger deal - lewdness, exposure, indecency, etc.

Voula Papachristou's joke about about Africans and West Nile virus was, by itself, in poor taste, but to tweet it to the world, as an Olympic representative, during the Olympics, was something else, as well. Recall that the Greeks invented the Olympics, so they might be a little bit touchy about its besmirching, especially by one of its own.

Papachristou offended a whole continent and made Greece look stupid. To control the damage, authorities forfeited her Olympic participation. Sometimes it's not just what you say, but who you say it to (sic), that makes the difference.

James C. Collier

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Anti-Rape Condom From South Africa

I heard about this South African device during the FIFA World Cup, this past summer. Some people are quick to point out that the device does not actually prevent rape, rather it ‘shreds’ the penis of the attacker, creating a disincentive. Most of the articles I have read are simply reprints of the inventors’ press release, but the discussion (here) presents a better debate of the issues and context. It is important to note that rape and HIV infections in S. Africa are rampant, and the highest in the world.

World-wide Rape Statistics per capita (here).

Food for thought.

James C. Collier

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Malaria, Africa, And The Old/New World Order

The NYTimes just reported on a study and discovery that Egyptian King Tut (Tutankhamen) most likely died from malaria (p. falciparum)(here). I know, I know, you are saying, so what. However, beyond the amazing fact that researchers were able to pinpoint a cause of a death so long ago (1324 BC), the idea that the most well-known African King died from malaria, perhaps the oldest human disease of record, is clear invite into the reach of the disease, and impact on the evolution of Africa and humanity, and across the ocean.

We know from statistics and the work of organizations like the Gates Foundation, that malaria kills one million Africans, mostly children, per year. Until most recently, the disease has taken the second chair behind HIV, estimated to have killed 22 million Africans. While taking nothing away from HIV, malaria’s death total is reasonably up wards of 5 billion (100,000 avg. deaths/year x 50,000 years: assuming 100 billion total births). So what happens to a continent and a people who evolve under such harsh conditions, not to mention tropical challenges – heat, drought, famine, wild animals, poor agriculture, etc.?

The great African brain drain of the best and brightest. Everyone who could leave did leave – not to return. Still do. Societies develop at a relatively slower pace (hundredths/year), because a disproportionate share of resources is sucked away by a disease that has no craftier equal. The slower pace of development increases vulnerability to hostile and advanced outsiders. Viola! Colonization, slavery, exploitation, etc. It is amazing (at least to me) that something so simple as what killed King Tut so long ago, can so readily begin to explain so much today.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Malaria, Africa, And The Old/New World Order, King Tut, LA, Egypt, Disparity, Brain Drain, Acting White

Haiti: Orphan of West

Rushing to the aid of earthquake devastated Haiti is a no-brainer. The out-pouring of grief and support for the poorest of the poor in the western world is as it should be. It is only right, despite what the ilk of Pat Robertson or Rush Limbaugh might say. But what happens after we have delivered water, food, and medical help during this emergency? How do we really help them long-term? Is it possible? The knee-jerk answer is yes, but what do we rebuild, and for what reason, really? This is a much more difficult question.

Haiti represents the worse of all that went wrong with the Atlantic Slave Trade. Displacing these people from their African birthplace a continent away, enslaving them under a sketchy government – the French – only to abandon them to their own limitations on a tiny island. And finally, saddling them with a cost of their freedom which guaranteed a bad start and no-win future. This is Haiti.

At the base of the country’s economic tale of woe is a population size that slams its diminishing agricultural base. The population density of the country is 10X that of the US. Ten million is too many people, half of them illiterate! Haiti is a prime example of ‘ecoside’, or suicide by a plunder of one’s living environment. The country has been deforested, over the past 200 years, to the point where living off the land is impossible, and they have no other means of trade. With no exports to trade for petroleum as fuel, they have consumed their forest for heating and cooking, and left themselves no escape route.

So, the world can respond to the current devastation, but only via an indefinite emergency-type aid scenario, where we provide the basics year after year. They are wards of the industrial world, orphans. There is no infrastructure to rebuild, no economy to repair, no confidence to bolster. If the reparations-extracting French had any moral backbone, or true patriotism, they should be ashamed for this mess of a country created in the wake of their colonial exploits. But hey, they are the French.

Anyway, what to do? Our thinking needs to get crazy. Haiti needs to be recognized for what it is, a malnourished ecological/economic/political orphan of colonial Europe and the west. The G7/8 need to collectively take it over, install a provisional government, tear it down and build it back, as if they were freed just yesterday. The French and US - those who blockaded the fledge-ling nation for nearly 60 years, owe them and need to pay up first, and pay big, including paying French-speaking Africa to accept, voluntarily, as many of the ‘too-many’ inhabitants as possible. The population density must be reduced immediately. This may all seem heavy and nut-zo, but drastic is called for, otherwise we should get ready to continue witnessing, from our top-side front-row seat, their annual devastation, punctuated by disaster, accompanied by expensive, high-tech, band-aid rescues.

James C. Collier

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Acting White: STOPPING BLACK HIV/AIDS

I clipped this info from the theloop21.com site, because facts are so much more meaningful than slogans. Putting the words STOP AIDS over a black hand would have been more inclusive and less Spike Lee-ish, but that's a small nit. Moving on, if the push is about black people taking responsibility for the behaviors that make AIDS a leading killer, let's do it. But a word to the wise, stopping AIDS, like violence, will require America to approach the problem differently. The behavior systems in America's 'urban-islands' more closely resemble those of places like Lagos, Nigeria, Africa's most advanced industrial city, rather than the white-majority melting pots of the US. This is the simple answer of why earlier US programs have, so far, failed the black demographic, while capturing others. They do not meet the issues of this audience head-on. Talking about it is the place to start. I'm in.
/JC

THE FACTS

HIV/AIDS AND YOUNG BLACKS

In 2005, the rate of AIDS diagnoses in black adults and adolescents was 10 times the rate for whites and nearly
three times the rate for Hispanics.

In 2004, African Americans were disproportionately affected by HIV infection, accounting for 55 percent of all
HIV infections reported among people ages 13–24.

Of the estimated 18,849 people under the age of 25 whose diagnosis of HIV/AIDS was made during 2001–2004 in the 33 states with HIV reporting, 11,554 (61 percent) were black.

In 2007, nearly 20 percent of people infected with HIV residing in the District of Columbia were between the age 13-29 at the time of their diagnosis.

In Georgia, the rate of adult/adolescent HIV/AIDS cases was 81.2 per 100,000 for African-Americans in 2005 and 8.7 per 100,000 for whites.

Of the 68 U.S. children (younger than 13 years of age) who had a new AIDS diagnosis in 2005, 46 were black.

Of the estimated 141 infants perinatally infected with HIV in 2005, 91 or 65 percent were black.

HIV/AIDS AND BLACK WOMEN

One in 30 black women will be diagnosed with HIV at some point in their lifetime.

The rate of AIDS diagnoses for black women was nearly 23 times the rate for white women in 2005.

AIDS was the leading cause of death in 2006 for black women 25 to 34.

Of the 126,964 women living with HIV/AIDS in 2005, 64 percent were black, 19 percent were white, 15 percent were Hispanic, one percent were Asian or Pacific Islander, and less than one percent were American Indian or Alaskan Native.

Of 40,608 AIDS diagnoses in the 50 states and the District of Columbia for 2005, 10,774 (26 percent) were women.

HIV/AIDS AND BLACK MEN

One in 16 black men will be diagnosed with HIV at some point in their lifetime.

The rate of AIDS diagnoses for black men was eight times the rate for white men in 2005.

AIDS was the second leading cause of death in 2006 for black men ages 35 to 44.

Of the Washington, D.C., residents living with HIV/AIDS in 2008, 76.3 percent were black and 71.7 percent were male.

The rate of adult/adolescent AIDS cases for African-American males (118.7 per 100,000) was eight times that of white males (14 per 100,000) in Georgia in 2005.

THE COST OF HIV/AIDS

The total lifetime cost of illness for Americans newly diagnosed with HIV in 2002 is approximately $36.4 billion.

While whites incur more direct medical costs than blacks for HIV treatment, blacks suffer greater financial damage from loss of productivity.

In 2007, over half of the 900,000 Americans living with HIV died from the virus.

HIV/AIDS is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.

The U.S. Agency for International Development for funding HIV/AIDS in the region is expected to increase its funds to $30 billion by 2010.

Sources: District of Columbia Department of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Georgia Department of Community Health Office and Health Improvement, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Congressional Research Service Report, Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes (JAIDS)

James C. Collier

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Acting White: Pope Claims Condoms Increase AIDS

Pope Benedict wants more Catholics, I get this. Africa is a growth region with a lot of uncommitted delegates (souls), so no surprise that he would be there making sure the Muslims, Hindus, and Mormons do not run off with the place. After all, the church has expenses too. Right here in Oakland, with a brand-spanking new cathedral ‘of the light’ that cost $200 million, we are faced with a restless bunch of diocesans in the dark trying to pay their bills.

I may not agree, but, all things being equal, I understand why the pontiff does not like condoms. Any shortage of little baby Catholics grows into an eventual shortage of grown-up worshipers with jobs to match tithing obligations. It all comes back to managing expense to the promise land – God loves accountants.

Of course what I do not understand is how the pontiff can challenge the truth that condoms prevent the spread of AIDS, especially to people who have yet to buy into his abstinence line. This is like giving away hymnals before people actually show up to your church to sing. And if they try some early off-key practice singing at home, then they die. Oops. My bad. I meant to say keep the books, but hold off on the singing until Sunday, when you get the full story.

It seems that in order to maximize the number of long-term Catholics, the Holy See would want the future faithful to immediately switch to safe sex, saving the missionary playbook on how to 'play', as catholicized monogamous couples, for when they are firmly in the church’s dogmatic clutches. I’m sure the Lord Almighty can distinguish between condom use to prevent the epidemic spread of a deadly disease, and 'jimmy-hat' haberdashery that limits the number new babies by faithful hetero-couples. So I ask, how come the Pope cannot make this distinction, in order to help save these poor Africans he so fervently desires for his flock?

James C. Collier

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Black Leaders Urge Fight Against AIDS et al

Black Leaders Urge Fight Against AIDS - AP

Why the U.S. Has Not Stemmed HIV - Washington Post

Black America Must Confront AIDS - Washington Post

Julian Bond, the NAACP, and other Black leadership are finally taking to the stage to collect their ‘better late than never’ awards for calling overdue attention to the AIDS epidemic. Sadly, and with the scourge of the disease firmly resident in the Black community, the highest-level Black leaders have finally found their voices.

But it will take more than a few words to move Black clergy and their congregations from the homophobic sermonizing that has been a hallmark and distracting gauntlet, over the past 25 years. Yes, twenty-five years!

Now that AIDS has completely jumped to the heterosexual community, one fear is that Black church leaders will figure out how to partition Black gay men out of their initiatives for battling the disease. This continuing blame-game would only compound the tragedy, and further the spread.

Is there hope that Black clergy, across the nation, might experience a level of divine inspiration that will allow them to set aside judgments and tend to the whole ‘flock’? Perhaps, but homophobia runs deep in the Black community, driving gay men even deeper into their closeted lives.

Only time will reveal if therapies to treat and prevent AIDS, which have gained significant footing, will continue to face their biggest challenge, in part, from the pulpit.

James C. Collier

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Progress on AIDS Is Focus of Assembly et al

Progress on AIDS Is Focus of Assembly - Washington Post

U.N. Says Promises Broken in AIDS Fight - AP

AIDS Activists Protest at U.N. Building - AP

New battle lines emerging in Asia anti-AIDS fight - Reuters

U.N. Says India Now Has Most AIDS Cases - AP

Fight AIDS at a Store Near You - Washington Post

U.N. Group Sets Compromise on AIDS Policy - Washington Post

Another $10 Billion - Washington Post

The other day I sent a note to a cycling friend of mine, Peter Dolan who also happens to be the CEO of Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), the 19 billion dollar US pharmaceutical company. The occasion was to offer him my personal thanks for a BMS initiative I had read about, whereby his company and Baylor Medical School were teaming up to send 250 doctors to Africa to provide AIDS/HIV treatment.

While thanking him, I also acknowledged the ‘cold-equation’ of the spread of the virus across Africa against the monumental tasks of combating it. Currently, only one in five Africans are slated to get treatment, leaving the other 80%, many of who are children, to surely perish. The world-wide donated monies, upwards of $10 billion this year, flowing to fight the disease are less than half of what is required and this difference is expected to get worse as the disease progresses at a faster pace than treatment.

Fighting AIDS/HIV is tremendously difficult because transmission is intertwined with behaviors that are difficult and slow to change, as we have seen here in the US. Furthermore, treatment programs that, at best, keep the disease in check, are substantially more expensive and complex to administer.

Nonetheless, Peter’s words gave me positive pause, and are worth repeating:

Jim,
Thanks for the words of encouragement…This is only the latest and the tip of the iceberg in terms of what BMS has done regarding AIDS in Africa. Years ago we lowered the price to our manufactured costs, we aren't enforcing patents in Africa, we have built/are building 7 pediatric clinics that treat thousands and we are teaching generic companies who promise to keep the medicine in Africa and India how to make our newest and most innovative therapies while they are still early in their patent life. We've funded over 200 grants and have committed $150 million (second only to the Gates Foundation) since 1999. Our efforts are well known among the international AIDS community, much less so in the US. Check out Secure the Future on our website if you are interested in more.
Hope you are doing well. good luck with the book!
Peter

As the leaders and the faithful in the AIDS/HIV battle continue to find new ways to meet the challenges of the disease, both at home and round the world, I will look for more ways to get involved, while I offer these legions the same encouragement that I sent to Peter – thanks and keep up your good work.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Progress on AIDS Is Focus of Assembly, AIDS Africa, Prevention, UNAIDS, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Peter Dolan, Acting White

Impunity on Trial in Africa et al

Impunity on Trial in Africa - Washington Post

College's Ex-President Pleads Guilty to Fraud - Washington Post

Ex-College Chief Pleads Guilty to Stealing - Washington Post

I remember being told by Whites, as a kid, to go back to Africa. I always thought that if White people forced Blacks to come here against their will, I would certainly make sure I stayed put, if only to spite them. In any case, Africa remained a place to be 'from'.

Nonetheless, as multiple African leaders, including Liberian president Charles Taylor, face society-advancing prosecution for crimes against their people, I cannot help but rejoice for the continent, and at the same time shake my head at the similarities of third-world African kleptocracies, weighed against events in the Black community here.

In particular, my attention is drawn to the sameness, in a relative sense, between Mr. Taylor and the ex-president Delores Cross of Morris Brown College, a historically Black College in Atlanta. Ms. Cross recently plead guilty to embezzlement and saddling individual students with $3.4 million in fraudulent debt, while dealing a near-death blow to the 126 year old institution.

Many young Black people who barely set foot on the Morris Brown campus now carry the burden of repaying loans against non-existent educations. It is hard to understand how our justice system would allow a reduced plea in her case. As an educator she assaulted the futures of young people, and surely killed some. The comparison with Taylor is harsh, but knowledge via education is indeed life-giving.

As Africa struggles to progress from advanced chiefdoms to full-fledged states, including adherence to the rule of law, Blacks should not ignore the sobering social artifacts they hold onto that keep them back. We will always be able to point to others as perpetrators of frauds, but much of our plight is about what we ‘do unto ourselves’, on the way to ever getting the opportunity to properly ‘do unto others’, in biblical style.

James C. Collier

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Technorati Tags: Impunity on Trial in Africa, Charles Taylor, Corruption, Genocide, Acting White