Jeet Heer takes my post about Eric Breindel and AIDS a step further, seeing a pattern in the likelihood that neocon icon Allan Bloom died of AIDS. Heer:
Breindel’s story is particularly poignant since he aligned himself closely with the law-and-order wing of American politics, and was close friends with many people who adamantly oppose drug legalization and needle exchange programs....
The best weapon in the fight against AIDS is education. By acting as if
AIDS were something private, a scarlet letter burned on the flesh that
needs to be kept hidden, the neo-conservatives make the fight against
this disease even more difficult than it already is.
Hi Phil,
I mentioned the Gaza protest at cornell in one of your comments sections yesterday. Check out the reaction to it – and the stunning quotes from hillel etc basically condoning the destruction.
More civilians have been reported killed as intense fighting continues between government forces and Tamil Tiger rebels in north-east Sri Lanka.
The military said the rebels had shot dead 17 civilians and injured about 70 trying to flee the conflict zone.
Pro-Tamil sources said the military had shelled the government-designated "safety zone", killing 36 civilians.
The Red Cross says the recent fighting has claimed hundreds of civilian lives and tens of thousands are trapped.
On Monday, the military said 29 people died when a female Tamil Tiger rebel blew herself up in the north-east.
See map of the region
Independent journalists cannot travel to the war zone so information cannot be verified.
UN condemnation
Sri Lankan military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said on Tuesday that civilians heading into government-controlled areas told soldiers that rebels had fired on a group of 1,000 people who were trying to flee the fighting.
"The civilians came to an army position carrying the 17 dead and 69 others who had gunshot injuries," Brig Nanayakkara said.
The government says thousands are trying to cross to safety each day and accuses the rebels of using civilians as human shields.
The pro-rebel TamilNet web site also says thousands are fleeing but that they are seeking shelter in Tiger-controlled areas because of army shellfire into the government-declared "safety zone".
It said at least 36 civilians were killed and 76 wounded because of military mortar and artillery fire.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has expressed serious concern for more than 200,000 trapped civilians.
The government says the number is about half that and has accused the Red Cross of trying to incite panic.
The UN and US both condemned Monday's killings in the Vishwamadu area of Mullaitivu district.
The suicide attack on Monday left 29 dead, the military says
A UN statement reiterated that "civilians must be distinguished from combatants and protected from the fighting".
A US embassy statement said it was an "apparent effort by the [Tamil Tigers] to discourage Tamils from leaving the conflict area".
Brig Nanayakkara said civilians were approaching an area where there were security forces when a woman blew herself up when she was being checked by female soldiers.
About 50,000 soldiers are pressing the Tamil Tigers into an area of north-eastern jungle after taking the key areas of Kilinochchi, Elephant Pass and Mullaitivu.
The government has rejected international calls for a ceasefire, demanding the rebels lay down their arms.
The Tigers have said they will not do so until they have a "guarantee of living with freedom and dignity and sovereignty".
The rebels started fighting in the 1970s for a separate state for Tamils.
People with serious illnesses often keep them secret, or at least private. This may be especially true for those in politics, those with serious adversaries– I guess the feeling is that being ill and mortal in the near term makes one less influential. Might that not explain Eric's secrecy about his illness? And the others, very few of whom actually knew the whole story, may just have been honoring the deceased's wishes. Shaming about AIDS seems misguided, but not every private illness needs to be made into an educational moment.
This is a complicated issue, I think.
None of the people I knew, who died from AIDS, died from, well AIDS. All of them died of a series of illnesses that their bodies' natural defenses were too weak to fight. How would you decide if a medical scientist told you that in such cases a 100% sure relation can simply not be proved? What do you make of the people that carry the AIDS virus for ages and never experience any problems? Are they a fiction?
Let's assume a well-known politician, gets an infected blood preservation, which causes his AIDS infection. He is a stout conservative and a family man, leaving kids and wife behind.
Would you want the press to not mention that in the end he died from a double pneumonia, but that he really died of AIDS. Or should you (mis-)use his case as a warning about the security in the field of paid blood donations?
Remember, many only peruse the press, and pick out whatever draws their attention creating a rumor mill.
I guess I wouldn't mention it in any report about his dead. Maybe in a report about security problems in blood products? At least as long as there is no absolute security about cause and effect. …
That the stigmatization of AIDS patients should stop is another story. Which leads us into an even more complex field.
Bloom also had a thing for younger black men. Which I think is a little funny, given his distate for affirmative action programs…while all the while he was running one out of his own apartment.
Did Tom Kahn die of AIDS?
Mr. Kahn died of complications resulting from AIDS, said a statement issued by the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations.
The AIDS epidemic in America erupted out of exactly the most liberal places in the country: San Francisco, NYC, and LA. The AIDS epidemic wasn't caused by "shame" or by "silence," but by gay liberation, which allowed industrial scale gay promiscuity.
And of course it was shameful for Eric Breindel to have gotten AIDS — he had been arrested for buying smack shortly after he'd gotten a superhigh security clearance to serve as Moynihan's aide on the security committee in the Senate — a grotesque scandal.
I presumed he then cleaned up his act and stayed off heroin the rest of his life, but was still felled by the virus he had acquired as a young man in the end. If so, then, it's natural for his friends to want to avoid mentioning the cause of his death, since he had been off heroin for many years.