Not only is this “study” completely ridiculous, some people are just a tad too sensitive… and their racism is showing. 

“A few even said the yellow-brown colour of the $100 banknote reinforced the perception the woman was Asian, and “racialized” the note. […] One person in Fredericton commented: “The person on it appears to be of Asian descent which doesn’t rep(resent) Canada. It is fairly ugly.” 

Click the quote to read the article. 

This is just dangerous. WTF Canada? Click the image to enlarge.

A recent article in The Walrus, a Canadian general-interest magazine, featured the headline, “AIDS at 30” on it’s cover. This of course, caught my attention. My wandering eye is usually reserved for cute boys and fanciful outfits, but as an academia deprived unemployed, I found myself drawn to the story at stand.

Beside the headline was a close up shot of scattered pills, all presumably bits and pieces of the toxic cocktail that we’ve no doubt heard about in passing conversations about HIV and AIDS.

The subheading beneath read: “It was once a death sentence. Now more men than ever are living with HIV—changing what it means to be gay.”

I was slightly perturbed by this. I had yet to read the article, but my interest was piqued enough to have me shucking out the seven dollars I didn’t have to buy a magazine I had never even read. To justify my pathetic, buyers-remorse, I flipped through it to check for other relevant articles. One or two popped out at me, and that was enough. Plus, I’m always a sucker for some Canadian content.

Consumerism at it’s best.

Later on during the subway ride home, I pulled out the thin, 65-or-so-page issue and flipped through until I found the cover story. Sprawled on the left side of the spread was a photo of a man, shot from behind with his face hidden, ascending a metal spiral staircase. From the looks of the background, the photo must have been taken in a courtyard of some sort, as evidenced by the few vines that wrapped itself around the white spiral stairs.

The image had a unique visual narrative. On the opposite side of the spread were the words “Life after Death”. Appropriately enough, the bright light shining down from above highlighted the side of the man’s hidden face. The idea of him, faceless, moving into the light and out from beneath the shadow of death, worked well with the story that followed.

The author, Michael Harris, opens his article with the story of Sam. It recounts how Sam contracted HIV, his ensuing discovery, the decline of his health and then his rather miraculous recovery. Emotionally anchoring his story is the death of his father, who, in a twist worthy of Nicholas Sparks, succumbed to cancer at the exact same time that Sam believed himself to be a goner. What really hit home for me was this: Sam’s refusal to tell his parents that he was dying as well.

“So in a desperate act of familial protection, he kept the unhappy truth to himself and left his parents wondering.”

Surprisingly, HIV and AIDS continue to be an often-neglected discussion. A few months ago, a friend of mine confessed to me that he had had unprotected sex in a one-night stand. While I tried to figure out how to react, I found that I was more shocked by his lack of awareness than his submission to the youthful lust that plagues many young gay men of my age. As it turns out, he had never had the HIV discussion with his other queer friends, nor did he research it himself.

After that night, I reflected on my own sexual education. HIV and AIDS was one of the first things I researched when I came out. I had heard the stories and I had heard the preconceptions, so at a young age, the fear of the “gay plague” was instilled in my fifteen-year-old psyche. And perhaps I am just an anomaly; perhaps it’s just my information-hungry nature that drove me to do work in my undergrad surrounding HIV and AIDS prevention/politics. Who knows? All I wanted to do was stay informed. I wanted to be a good gay person, whatever that was. I wanted the facts to keep me safe. But as we all know, facts don’t do much unless we put them to use.

And so, I moved on to think about my own relationship with HIV. I had exposed myself early on to queer literature that had positive characters in them, which only furthered my curiosity of HIV. I participated in an AIDS Walk in my area and for a few years of my undergrad, I went around to high schools discussing safe-sex practices.

But when it came to my own sex life (and I will admit, I am a frequent visitor), I began to find myself tempted, more and more, by sans-condom intercourse (and I am sure that I am not alone). Perhaps it was the constant discussion of bareback sex that my friends had, describing their experiences with the same level of intensity and candor that others would use to describe gourmet chocolate. Or maybe it was the rampant spread of bareback pornography on the Internet, and how now more than ever, are rivaling the many major studios that currently still enforce a strict condom-only rule. Whatever it was, the temptation was there. Other issues fueled the desire, but none of them could hold up to the challenge against the risks of engaging in bareback sex. I then thought about what I would do if I were to be given a positive diagnosis: the reaction from my friends, whether or not I would tell my family, and what that would do to my mother, whose emotional and physical health is as fragile as ever. I thought about what it would do to me, a man of 24, with a bright future ahead—but wait—that statement: “It was a death sentence. Now more men than ever are living with HIV.”

I don’t know if Harris chose that subheading. I would be surprised if he did. The idea conveyed in those two short sentences is what I believe leads young gay men into engaging in unprotected sex. They think AIDS is passé, and that you can live with HIV for a long, long time. But despite this initial hiccup, I followed Harris’ article till the end, and found nothing that I really disagreed with. His own personal story, combined with Sam’s and his own opinions on HIV, AIDS and Gay culture today, raised many more questions for me than it did answer—but reflecting upon it now, I appreciate Harris and his article for drawing our attention to an important conversation that needs to be had amongst young, gay men.

The final few paragraphs drive his point home. He acknowledges race factors, he acknowledges sexuality, and he acknowledges how class comes into play in terms of rising HIV infections.

“HIV, then, is a rude reminder that our civil rights movement is incomplete. How can I feel like an equal when gay men are damned to abbreviated lives?”

And then, I wonder some more: Why is this article in The Walrus and not anywhere else?

If I hear one more man talk about what women should do with their bodies, I am going to flip my shit.

Good job, Canada. You’re all about to set us back 50 years.

It only took 6 years, but they finally did it.

But what does this mean? 4-5 years without another election? Another stab at taking away gay-marriage? (I doubt he’ll do that, even he’s not that stupid. I think.) 

I think it means that the youth, the women, the rebels, the artists, the pot smokers, the faggots and the dykes, the minorities are going to shout louder, kick harder, fight dirtier and become more incensed to bring this shit down. 

Thank you.

Goodnight.

Con vs. NDP. = Liberal-like government. Better than pure Conservatives.

Last night Osama Bin Laden was killed.

America rejoiced.

Obama made a speech.

People cheered.

Others questioned.

And I decided to watch 30 Rock, again.

Now if you haven’t seen the last episode, here is a quick recap: Jack Donaghy’s wife, Avery Jessup is kidnapped by Kim Jong-Il and held captive for the purpose of manufacturing political news propaganda. Jack uses all of his connections to pull Avery out, including Condoleeza Rice, his former lover. Meanwhile, Liz decides to take control of her own life and after being inspired by “The Secret”, she decides that she is the master of her own fate.

So what does 30 Rock have to do with Osama’s death? Not much, to be honest. But as I sit at Starbucks this very second, sipping my grande Americano, my mind begins to wonder: what does this really mean? Okay, so a single man has died; a man who caused a great deal of suffering and death, scarring millions of people. I guess that’s good? Would it have been better if he was captured, tried and sentenced? But, what in the world made him hate America so much in the first place? How could anyone want to destroy “the Free World”?

A list of anti-American jokes run through my head, but I contain myself. I have American friends.

And then I remembered something that Obama said last night:

“The cause of securing our country is not complete. But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to.”

Well, of course! America is the greatest country in the world! Like Avery said, “Oh thank God. I forgot the US country code, but then I remembered it’s number one!”

America. Is. Number. One.

Anything they put their mind to, they will achieve. It doesn’t matter that it took ten years, nor does it matter that it cost upwards of 1 trillion dollars. And let’s face it: the death of a million people for the safety of billions is the price we pay for freedom. 

I don’t mean to insult my American friends, or any of you who happen to be American, and I am certainly not saying that the death of millions is something to be frank about. But I simply cannot seem to feel anything good about his death. Chances are it is because I am not American and therefor I do not know how it feels to have my own country come under attack by, shhhhh, terrorists. I mean, I was 14 at the time and in my first year of high school. Even now I still don’t know much about the politics surrounding Osama’s betrayal of America. But what I do know is that I am able to admit to the fact that I really did not know how to react to his death because the excessive displays of joy and celebration freaked me the fuck out. It seemed crazy and distant; a world so close yet perspectives apart.

I also have to remind myself that I am speaking form a uniquely Canadian experience; sometimes we forget how different we are from the rest of the world (America). We don’t live in a constant state of fear. We don’t have ridiculously manufactured news stories the way FOX News does. We don’t pay for healthcare. We are obviously socialists.

But we are also human, and at times we too become blinded by rage and passions that we cannot control. We feel unbearable amounts of grief when a loved one passes. Afterwards, the uncontrollable anger follows, directed towards the people, God, or whomever we feel is responsible for the death. So strong is this feeling that we wish we could have killed the perpetrator ourselves. This, I understand.

But somewhere there is a line.

We cannot revel in the death of a human being like this. The more comfortable we are with death, the easier it is for someone else to pull the trigger, plunge the knife or set a bomb. We lose ourselves a little more every time we smile at death as if it is our friend, a fellow conspirator, reinforcing our own innocence as members of a free nation because Evil has been destroyed.

But can people be so arrogant as to forget that at the exact same time, there are people out there who look towards the West and see nothing but red?

Masters of our own fate.

Now, can someone remind me: whose fate are we the masters of, exactly?