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The
Epidemic Continues
Sunday,
Dec. 1, marked World AIDS Day. Organizations across America
and around the world remembered those who have fallen victim
to the disease, and they’ve stepped up efforts to increase
AIDS awareness. But the epidemic continues to grow globally,
and there is evidence to suggest that the prevalence of HIV
and AIDS in the Capital Region is as strong as ever.
According to the New York State Department of Health, the
City of Albany has a higher HIV/AIDS rate than any urban area
in the state, excluding four of the five boroughs of New York
City. Local organizations such as Housing Works and the AIDS
Council of Northeastern New York report that there is no decline
in the number of people seeking their services. Kathy Callan
of the AIDS Council said that there are waiting lists for
services in almost all of the 15 counties her organization
serves in northeastern New York.
Despite campaigns to educate the public, misperceptions about
the disease remain. Holding fast is the general public’s belief
that AIDS is a disease afflicting only gay men and injection-drug
users. However, a recent report shows that for the first time
in the history of the disease, an equal number of men and
women are infected with HIV. Exploding epidemics in developing
nations, where women have no access to condoms or information
about AIDS, are largely responsible for the recent closing
of the worldwide gender gap. But statistics show that changing
trends are having a leveling effect in the United States as
well.
According to the most recent counts, women account for about
30 percent of AIDS cases in New York state, up from 10 percent
since 1985. Heterosexual contact, in which women are at a
much higher risk than men of contracting HIV, is the fastest
growing cause of infection in America. According to the New
York State Department of Health, heterosexual transmission
of AIDS now outpaces homosexual transmission for the first
time in the Bronx, Brooklyn, and the lower- and mid-Hudson
regions—though both methods of transmission lag behind transmission
through IV drug use.
Straight men who think they are not at risk should be aware
that more than 7 percent of men who contracted HIV in 1999
did so through heterosexual sex, up from .2 percent in 1986.
—Paul
Hamill
An
Independent Voice
On
Nov. 21, Stephen Leon, editor and publisher of Metroland,
received special recognition from the New York state Civil
Liberties Union at an award ceremony at the Albany Institute
of History & Art. Leon was recognized for his dedication
to informing residents in the Capital Region of threats posed
against their civil liberties post-Sept. 11.
Heidi Siegfried, interim executive director for the Capital
Region chapter of NYCLU, said that her organization was impressed
with Metroland’s news coverage after the terrorist
attacks on the World Trade Center. She said that as editor
of Metroland, Leon showed his dedication to the civil
liberties by running a number of stories critical of Bush
administration policies on war, homeland security, the detaining
of Arab-Americans and other threats to civil rights, policies
most mainstream media outlets covered much more favorably.
“While
corporate media outlets have taken the path of least resistance
and skirted these topics, Metroland has dealt with
them head-on,” said NYCLU spokeswoman Christian Smith-Socaris.
“What
good is a First Amendment right if it is not being covered
by the press?” asked Siegfried.
Also recognized at the event was Assemblyman Jeff Aurby (D-L-Queens),
who received the Ned Pattison Award for his tireless work
toward repealing the Rockefeller Drug Laws. The Carol S. Knox
award went to Kathryn Kase, former president of the New York
State Association for Criminal Defense, for her leadership
in the state’s criminal defense community.
—Nancy Guerin
Regarding
Henry
Maybe
he was counting on the tryptophan.
In a surprisingly understated press conference last Wednesday
(Nov. 27), President George W. Bush announced that controversial
former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger—whom many regard
as criminally liable for his participation as an advisor in
the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975, the overthrow
of Chilean President Allende in 1973 and the secret bombing
of Cambodia and Laos beginning in 1969—had been selected to
head the independent commission created to investigate the
Sept. 11 attacks. Earlier in the week, President Bush’s signing
into law of the Homeland Security Bill was trumpeted proudly
by the administration; however, by timing the announcement
of Kissinger’s selection such that newspaper coverage would
run on Thanksgiving—a day when few are diligently scouring
the papers—it seemed the administration was crossing its fingers
and hoping to scoot Kissinger through quietly.
Nevertheless, by the end of the weekend, the op-eds were flying.
In The New York Times, Maureen Dowd sneered, “Who better
to ferret out government duplicity and manipulation than the
man who engineered secret wars, secret bombings, secret wiretaps
and secret coups, and still ended up as a Pillar of the Establishment
and Nobel Peace Prize Winner?” In the Washington Post,
for which Kissinger has written many editorials on American
foreign policy, Howard Kurtz somewhat more mildly observed,
“One of the main goals is to reassure a country shaken by
the worst terrorist attack in history. Why, then, would the
president pick someone who used to be one of the most divisive
figures in public life?” (As a more fitting nominee, Kurtz
suggested Rudy Giuliani.)
Aside from wire-service reports and syndicated columns, local
media have expressed no strong opinion on the matter—which
is not to say that there has been no local reaction.
An informal poll on WAMC’s morning program The Round Table
found that more than 70 percent of callers objected to Kissinger’s
appointment; and Mark Dunlea, chairman of the New York State
Green Party, “harshly criticized” the choice in a press release,
calling it “reprehensible.”
“It
seemed a slap in the face to both the families that lost relatives
on Sept. 11 and to the American people—and, to a certain extent,
to the rest of the world,” said Dunlea in a phone interview.
“It’s a very strong indication of the absolute fear that the
present administration has about what would be found if somebody
was actually able to investigate what did happen—and why it
happened—on Sept. 11.”
Kissinger does have his champions: The Wall Street Journal
said, “. . . we find it preposterous to suggest that he’d
sell out his country,” and columnist (and former speechwriter
for President Richard M. Nixon) William Safire wrote, affectionately,
“. . . Bush chose Kissinger because the old operator can see
through the secret obfuscations he mastered long ago.”
Dunlea, however, takes no comfort in the “it takes a thief”
rationalization: “This is a guy who is clearly willing to
lie, clearly willing to break the law, and seems a master
of damage control,” he said. “There is nothing in his background
that, to me, would indicate a willingness or an ability to
reveal the truth to the American public—and it’s very clear
that Bush does not want the American public to find out the
truth about Sept. 11.”
—John
Rodat
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