Today being World AIDS Day and all we at MarnCo--the ruthless multinational behind The Big Adventure--have decided as a public service we will present our three loyal readers with Know Your AIDS.

The AIDS virus comes in many strains. For instance, Africa is infected with a strain called Invisible AIDS, so named because although whole generations of sub-Saharan Africa are being wiped out, the world doesn't seem to see that there's a problem there.

Eastern Europe, India and China are infected with Ostrich AIDS. Ostrich AIDS is easily diagnosed. It makes officialdom in affected countries stick their heads in the sand, hoping that if they don't acknowledge that there is a problem, then there won't actually be a problem.

Some of you might recall that the United States was hit with a particularly virulent strain of Ostrich AIDS during the Reagan years.

I'm glad to report that the Ostrich strain has died down here and in North America we now have two main strains:

1) the Tragic Strain, the AIDS that infects folks through non-sexual means such as blood transfusions. This would be your Socially Acceptable AIDS.

2) the God Smites Strain which is transmitted sexually and originally hit gay men far harder than the general population. God Smites is also sometimes used to describe AIDS contracted through IV drug use. Both would be your Completely Socially Unacceptable AIDS.

As the name implies, God created the God Smites AIDS strain as punishment for a lifestyle of which She/He does not approve. Why it took God endless millennia to get around to smiting the homos (who have been around far longer than junkies) I do not know. You'd think that if God was ticked off about something then She/He would get right on the smiting thing.

Does this mean God is a slacker?

Or maybe ... maybe this is a make believe strain.

Maybe this isn't about God at all.

Maybe this is about some people's attitudes about where other people stick their dangly bits.

Hrm. Ya think?

My friend Jean, who's a public health nurse, convinced a nearby restaurant to donate a portion of its proceeds from the meals it sold today to AIDS research. She spent endless hours organizing things, got local businesses to supply door prizes, even got some local musicians to agree to play for free during the supper hour.

The long table full of brochures she set up just inside the door of the restaurant, brochures that contained everything from UN reports on AIDS in Africa to the risks of tattoos and body piercings, was impressive testimony to her drive to get the word out.

In solidarity, a bunch of us showed up for lunch, stuffed money in the donation jar, put on our red ribbons and our "Make Every Day World AIDS Day" stickers.

It felt woefully inadequate.

Some problems, such as AIDS, are so huge that they seem insurmountable. But then I tell myself that there was a time when tuberculosis seemed as unstoppable as AIDS. Small pox must have felt like that. Polio must have felt like that, too. We found ways to beat these diseases using far less sophisticated equipment than what we have now. Surely we can find a way.

In the meantime, I think it's important to remember that the thing with AIDS is that somehow feelings about other folks' lifestyles, feelings about sex, have gotten tangled up with a medical problem.

So to the Parkinson's-addled old white guy with the goofy white hat over in Rome, to the born again white guy in the White House, to the white guy business magnate about to take over in Canada--guys, we're looking at a catastrophe in Africa.

Telling folks to just say no to sex doesn't work. Prohibitting condom distribution as part of AIDS aid packages either on religious grounds or moral grounds is so incredibly stupid that if it could harnessed for power our planet would go supernova.

Stop the stupidity with condom distribution. Stop it right now. WEARING A CONDOM NEVER KILLED ANYONE, YOU DIMWITS.

Can you say the same thing about not wearing one?

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 526.91 miles (854 kilometers)
met goal Nov. 7

Goal for 2003: 500 miles - 804.5 kilometers