politics

just what it says

  • Just another tease

    Here’s another short outtake from the pre-show walkthrough that John Grosso and I had in a G+ Hangout On Air (HOA) earlier this week for tomorrow evening’s Rainbow Show. Live stream begins at 7 pm CST.     Please drop in to view the show live, and ask questions via the comment stream on YouTube or Google+….

  • Hang out with me on Friday

    Remember when Google+ was launched more than a year ago to compete in the social networking arena with giants like Facebook? You don’t?  Well, you’re not alone. Despite our love/hate relationship with Facebook, few of us who had grown accustomed to that place could find the time and energy to embrace yet another site…

  • On my way to the forums…

    I previously reported that the recent attacks on Marco Ruggiero’s academic freedom have been instigated, at least in part, by a known Internet troll who goes by various names, including “Snout”. Most of us involved in AIDS questioning are familiar with this nom de plume. Snout is a frequent contributor to comment threads all over the Internet, as a simple Google search will yield well over 2 million hits for “snout + aids + denialists”. Snout also blogs at a site called Reckless Endangerment, which has an Alexa website ranking of about 25M; in other words, he has very few followers, especially considering his tenacity.

  • When trolls attack: an open letter to “Dora”

    Dear Dora,

    You and your ARV-loving friends at the HIVforum (Italian language forum for HIV-positives) might want to have your medications checked. Your latest public attack on a respected and admired researcher is nothing, if not irrational.

    When did you decide that you can speak for all of us who have AIDS, or who test positive for HIV?

    Your recent rant against University of Firenze (Italy) professor Marco Ruggiero, as reported at The Truth Barrier, is amazingly ill-conceived, malicious and detrimental to the well-being of all of us who are living with illness and HIV, and I am compelled to call you out.

    You have accused Ruggiero of advertising for patients to experiment with his probiotic yogurt, and you have claimed that he is putting people with HIV disease at risk by suggesting they not take their AIDS drugs. You offer no evidence that either of these allegations are true, while I can, and will, provide evidence that in fact, the opposite is the case.

  • Deja vu at the FDA

    This feels like déjà vu. Nearly thirty years ago I helped organize hundreds of AIDS activists to demonstrate at FDA headquarters in Silver Spring, MD, as well as organized die-ins at the agency’s regional headquarters here in Kansas City, to demand faster access to experimental new drugs to fight AIDS. I doubt if any…

  • Something of Interest

    Note:  Speculation by some of my more rabid critics of my impending death just because I haven’t blogged for awhile is greatly exaggerated. My muse has been on vacation while I have been in one of my reflective modes (read: dealing with fatigue) lately. To tide my more avid readers over, here is a…

  • KC gay rights debate–20 years ago

    I found some old video recordings of the televised public hearings for Kansas City’s gay rights ordinance 20 years ago. Between the poor quality of the original VCR tapes and the transition to digital, they look even older than that. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dTZTuoWoQE&hl=en_US&fs=1&] You gotta’ love those glasses! City council committee hearings here are televised…