A Positive Spin on World AIDS Day
All of a sudden it's gotten to be December. I haven't put anything here for three weeks. Did I forget? I don't think so. Actually, I have been writing, but that text is not yet ready for public consumption. It's one of the chapters of – as a friend termed it the other day – "the Great American Economics Book" that Mother Crafton and I think we're doing together. I'm excited about this project, though there is yet no real timetable to talk about. But I've written several thousand words about "Government" and this latest is the part about "Business", an apologia for profit-making pursuits, if you will. So stay tuned for hints on how it's going.
Meantime, today is World AIDS Day, and there are certainly some things I can say about that. We are heartened by a story on the Wall Street Journal website [here] about Jacob Zuma, the new president of South Africa, authorizing more advanced treatment there for both HIV and AIDS patients. Children born HIV-positive will start getting anti-retroviral drugs as soon as it's medically advisable. Mr. Zuma himself will be tested for HIV, almost certainly a symbolic act, but in Africa an important statement indeed about the importance of proper diagnosis and treatment. He must be the first Head of State in the world to be so tested.
I also think today of some of my friends who have lived for years – perhaps we can even say decades now – with HIV, reflecting the success of those very anti-retroviral drugs. Those guys take handfuls of pills every single day, but they live and move and have their being, just like the rest of us. Wow! More power to them!
Whoever thought we could say positive, constructive things about the efforts on the AIDS front? But we can, and somehow, it makes sense to have the world's commemoration of those efforts come on December 1st, right after Thanksgiving and at the beginning of Advent.
On more mundane matters, the U.S. Labor Department will issue the monthly "employment situation" report this coming Friday, so you will hear from us next week with an update on unemployment and jobs. No one thinks employment will have increased, but consensus forecasts by Wall Street economists look to the smallest monthly decline since January 2008. Let's hope they're right!
Meantime, today is World AIDS Day, and there are certainly some things I can say about that. We are heartened by a story on the Wall Street Journal website [here] about Jacob Zuma, the new president of South Africa, authorizing more advanced treatment there for both HIV and AIDS patients. Children born HIV-positive will start getting anti-retroviral drugs as soon as it's medically advisable. Mr. Zuma himself will be tested for HIV, almost certainly a symbolic act, but in Africa an important statement indeed about the importance of proper diagnosis and treatment. He must be the first Head of State in the world to be so tested.
I also think today of some of my friends who have lived for years – perhaps we can even say decades now – with HIV, reflecting the success of those very anti-retroviral drugs. Those guys take handfuls of pills every single day, but they live and move and have their being, just like the rest of us. Wow! More power to them!
Whoever thought we could say positive, constructive things about the efforts on the AIDS front? But we can, and somehow, it makes sense to have the world's commemoration of those efforts come on December 1st, right after Thanksgiving and at the beginning of Advent.
On more mundane matters, the U.S. Labor Department will issue the monthly "employment situation" report this coming Friday, so you will hear from us next week with an update on unemployment and jobs. No one thinks employment will have increased, but consensus forecasts by Wall Street economists look to the smallest monthly decline since January 2008. Let's hope they're right!
Labels: American Society, Health Care and Pensions, People
posted by Carol S. | 12/01/2009 05:18:00 PM
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