Amnesty International says a “pandemic” of violence against women is fueling the increase of AIDS in women:
Mass rape and sexual violence in conflicts, coupled with collapsing health systems in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo, put women at much greater risk of contracting HIV, it said in a report released a day after the United Nations said nearly half of adults with HIV are women.
“The increasing spread of HIV/AIDS among women and sexual violence are interlinked,” Amnesty said. “If governments are serious in their fight against the disease they also have to deal with another worldwide ‘pandemic’: violence against women.”
Read the whole story.
More Information:
* World AIDS Day
* AIDS report 2004
* World Vision
Two Countries
by Naomi Shihab Nye
Virgin Mary On Grilled Cheese Sandwich Sold To GoldenPalace.com:
In a perfect example of Americana pop culture phenomenon, a grilled cheese sandwich that bears the image of the Virgin Mary has been sold on eBay to Internet casino GoldenPalace.com for $28,000 USD.
If the Owl Calls Again
by John Haines
An outstanding story, Girls Enter the Lake by Gail Louise Siegel.
Watched Pieces of April the other night and it is utterly fantastic. I’ll tell you my hopes were not so high but Katie Holmes rose above Dawson’s Creek–she was sublime! And Patricia Clarkson is just to die for. All-in-all it is just an excellent movie with April’s disenfranchisement from her family representing the settlers in the New World (they are such fuck ups! how can they ever make it without us?). Yet, she succeeds. She seeks help from her neighbors, other immigrants, and provides everyone with a Thanksgiving dinner.
Patricia Clarkson as the ailing mother is perfect. She is so not likeable–downright mean at times (even when she’s mean to the perfect, irritating daughter there is sort of a cringe factor, like wow! that sucked!) but totally redeems herself with the bathroom scene when she sees herself as the impatient mother with the young girl who scurries out pulling up her tights (fuck! how poignant was that scene?).
The ending is great. It doesn’t promise too much. There’s no big “speech”–it just is what it is. I loved it.
Another Thanksgiving movie I liked was Home for the Holidays with Holly Hunter (she is so good!). I loved the tense familial relationships but the whole blow up with her sister and the following attempt at reconcialition is what I remember the most. It was so honest. The whole kind of Hollywood-esque ending of the movie was irritating but forgiveable for all of its good points.
As if we all weren’t depressed enough over the election, now we have the holidays to contend with–bah! bah! humbug:
Many factors can cause the “holiday blues”: stress, fatigue, unrealistic expectations, over-commercialization, financial constraints, and the inability to be with one’s family and friends. The demands of shopping, parties, family reunions, and house guests also contribute to feelings of tension. People who do not become depressed may develop other stress responses, such as: headaches, excessive drinking, over-eating, and difficulty sleeping.
Thank god I have these self-righteous tips to help me through it all! Now where’s my phototherapy lamp?
Yesterday, I reread pieces of John Berger’s And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos. It is a book I come back to again and again. I first learned of it maybe in 1992 when a boyfriend of mine transcribed one of the poems within and included it in a letter he sent me:
My heart born naked
was swaddled in lullabies.
Later alone it wore
poems for clothes.
Like a shirt
I carried on my back
the poetry I had read.
So I lived for half a century
until wordlessly we met.
From my shirt on the back of the chair
I learn tonight
how many years
of learning by heart
I waited for you.
I found the letter again a few years ago when I was cleaning out a trunk and decided to seek out the book. It is a slim book, just 101 pages, but each page holds something revelatory. As I look through it I see that I have an underline, a circle, an exclamation point, a comment on every page. As far as what the book is “about”, it is difficult to pinpoint. A mixture of prose, poetry and prose poetry, the book covers such topics of art, our way of seeing and understanding art (as in his seminal Ways of Seeing), creating, the creative process, writing, memory, prayer, death, language:
To break the silence of events, to speak of experience however bitter or lacerating, to put into words, is to discover the hope that these words may be heard, and that when heard, the events will be judged. This hope is of course at the origin of prayer, and prayer–as well as labor–was probably at the origin of speech itself. Of all uses of language, it is poetry that preserves most purely the memory of this origin.
Finally, though it is something of a love story:
What reconciles me to my own death more than anything else is the image of a place: a place where your bones and mine are buried, thrown, uncovered, together. They are strewn there pell-mell. One of your ribs leans against my skull. A metacarpal of my left hand lies inside your pelvis. (Against my broken ribs your breast like a flower.) The hundred bones of our feet are scattered like gravel. It is strange that this image of our proximity, concerning as it does mere phosphate of calcium, should bestow a sense of peace. Yet is does. With you I can imagine a place where to be phosphate of calcium is enough.
I’ve recommended this book to many friends and each one has come to say how much he learned, how deeply he was moved.
Bright Star
by John Keats
Every year I buy a carton of eggnog and it sits in my fridge unopened until sometime in January or February when I bring it to the dump. Why? Because eggnog is disgusting. Even the name is gross. And yet I am intrigued–read on: Eggnog! – History:
Other experts would have it that the “nog” of eggnog comes from the word “noggin”. A noggin was a small, wooden, carved mug. It was used to serve drinks at table in taverns (while drinks beside the fire were served in tankards). It is thought that eggnog started out as a mixture of Spanish “Sherry” and milk. The English called this concoction “Dry sack posset”. It is very easy to see how an egg drink in a noggin could become eggnog.
myfanwy collins 