OT: Kevorkian who?

[Peter Lamos]

Sarah,
	Actually, if you are so concerned about saving lives here in the
U.S. You might as well give us a 6-8 paragraph discourse on the
Democrats justification of abortion.
	Just kidding, political stuff on list is a "no, no."

Peter

_____________________
selahpiano@hotmail.com 
 


-----Original Message-----
From: pianotech-bounces@ptg.org [mailto:pianotech-bounces@ptg.org] On
Behalf Of Sarah Fox
Sent: Friday, January 30, 2004 12:54 AM
To: Pianotech
Subject: Re:OT: Kevorkian who?


Hi Horace,

> Actually, it's:
>
> Kevorkian

Noted!  :-)

It's funny the importance of a name.  If his name were John Smith,
nobody would remember him or his cause.  But "Kevorkian" is a name
people remember.

> And, in addition to being structured around earning money and avoiding

> lawsuits, it is doing a simply appalling job of dealing with two 
> epidemics which are engulfing the health care "system": AIDS and 
> Addiction.
>
> Wait 'til folks figure out that AIDS has entered the general 
> population. Last year 49% of all persons newly-diagnosed with HIV/AIDS

> were heterosexual.

More alarming still:  Around 1990, as I recall, when I was doing my
graduate work at the University of Texas, the university health service
randomly and anonymously tested blood samples from the student
population.  For instance, if some kid were having his blood drawn to
measure liver enzymes, they would tap a bit of blood, anonymously code
it, and test for HIV, along with a bizillion other anonymously coded
samples.  The result:  About 20% of the student population (in 1990) was
HIV+.  Kinda makes ya' think!

Now more than a decade later, we're bound and determined to throw lots
of the taxpayers' spare money (not much of it left, in the wake of
Cheney's Enron and the market collapse) towards fighting HIV in Africa
(old news) -- 
but not here in the US, of course, where it might benefit a few of our
own. Why?  I guess it's because we'd be helping some gay folks here in
the US, while the folks we are helping in Africa are straight (of
course!) and therefore have more right to live HIV-free.  But this is
all hot air anyway, since what Bush really meant was that we would
launch a campaign to tell those Africans to "just say no" to sex.  I
guess we won't be handing out any balloons.

Optimistically, maybe there's a cure to HIV somewhere on the moon.  :-)
That giant rock must be useful for *something*.

Even more alarming still:  The Bush Administration now proposes that the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will disqualify the lion's share
of independent scientists in the academic sector (those receiving or
having received federal research grant money) from reviewing the
research grant proposals of their peers.  What this means is that
politicians and hired-gun corporate scientists will be deciding which
research gets funding.  That's a bit like having saxophonists and
politicians decide which piano you are going to buy, based on their
abundant knowledge of the instrument.  Now, care to guess how much
attention HIV will get?  Mind you, Congress has already tried (and
failed) to micromanage NIH's budget to exclude funding for specific
research projects having to do with HIV.  Perhaps this time they will be
more successful.

.. and the United States of America, once the shining star of progress
in the sciences -- and our financially and politically crippled
community of keen minds, produced from what I *do* humbly regard as the
best system of higher education in the world -- will look to other
countries to lead the way towards further scientific progress.

.. while we impress the world by playing a few more rounds of golf on
the moon and maybe opening a pro shop there...

<sigh>

Peace,
Sarah,
who's amazed at just how fast those Republicans can spend away our
borrowed money

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