BOSTON AND AIDS

The family and I went to Boston for a mini-vacation yesterday. We had a good time, the kids loved everything, especially the pool in the beautiful Westin Waltham (just off route 95, close to Raytheon and historic Boston). We did Faneuil Hall (lots and lots of people spending a lots and lots of money for stuff available elsewhere at half the price) and the Boston Children’s Museum. The kids loved it, played with EVERYTHING and tired themselves out.

As a little aside, I was surprised (guess I shouldn’t have been) how remarkably politically correct it all was. There were TWO pretend Latino markets in the museum, an American Indian, I mean Native American exhibit and a whole room dedicated to the physically challenged. There was also a special exhibit, Boston Black, all about the black, whoops, African American community in Boston. That’s fine, but here’s what wasn’t there. An American exhibit, a revolutionary war exhibit, an exhibit on whaling, an exhibit on shipping, etc. Nothing about what made America, particularly Boston, great. It's a kids museum, I know, but we need to start young.

Oh, well, that’s what my kids have parents for.

This morning, outside my door in the above mentioned Westin, there was a USA Today that Katie brought in for me. The first thing I see on the front page is an article named Search for AIDS Vaccine Falters. The first line is this:

“The two-decade search for an AIDS vaccine, the only way to end the global crisis, is all but starting over, researchers here said Monday.”

I began to wave my arms over my head and my wife got that, “Oh no, not again” hurt look on her face when she knows I’m going to start ranting about some perceived liberal thing.

Perceptive she is.

“The only way to end the global crisis?”, I cried. “AIDS is the only “epidemic”, and I use that word for sake of argument, that is COMPLETELY controllable. All you have to do is not sleep around or have sex with someone that does. It’s not like polio that just hits out of the blue, you need to do something specific to get AIDS and we all know what that is.”

I know, I know, the bleeding hearts out there are sobbing into their hankies over how insensitive I am and how I don’t understand what it’s like in Africa and how Gore really won the 2000 election, etc. Look, I do understand that it’s a bit different in Africa, but I also know some African countries have had success against AIDS without a vaccine or mass condom drops for France.

Uganda has a great program, that because it doesn’t rely on letting people do whatever they want and blame America, the left ignores it. It’s called the ABC program and it goes like this:

Abstain from sex until you’re married.
Be faithful to your spouse
Condom if you’re a dirtbag and can’t do one and two.(OK, maybe I added the dirtbag part, but that's what they meant)

So, don’t tell me a vaccine is “the only way to end” AIDS.