WHAT THE FUCK IS A FUCKING PUPPET IN SOUTH AFRICA ANY CONCERN OF OUR SO CALLED LAWMAKERS WHEN A WAR ON TERRORISM, CORRUPTION IN THE LARGEST COROPRATIONS IN AMERICA, AND A NEWLY EMERGING NATIONAL DEFICT IS BALLONING LIKE A FINAL PAYMENT ON A FOUR YEAR VOLVO LEASE.
This is what I find obscene, one out of nine South Africans has AIDS/HIV and it takes a goddamned piece of carpet attached to a stick to make people in power even notice! I mean the Congress takes more time for ‘National Cornflake Month’ than African AIDS, and now this…
Well, probably because it’s associated with PBS, and therefore probably funded in part by American taxpayers.
That being said, anyone who opposes anything that helps to educate people of any age about how to increase their chances of avoiding exposure to HIV in an environment where 10% of the people that you meet are likely to be infected needs to have their brains rotated. (It’s not like they’re having a muppet demonstrate safe-sex practices, they’re focusing on things that are relevant to the age-bracket, like things to remember if you happen to have a skinned knee.)
Further, anyone who imagines that an AIDS epidemic on another continent is surrounded by a giant SEP* field is a fucking moron and should probably be suffocated for the good of the gene pool.
It’s interesting how different quotes can give a different tenor to the whole thing. The Yahoo link gives the impression the congressmen are “concerned”. This link is much more ominous, including a thinly veiled thread about funding.
I like the reaction of the Log Cabin Republicans, those self-hating queens as gobear describes them.
In South Africa, the infection rate in women is more like 40%.
This reminds me of the Congressman about five years ago, protesting the language in the movie Schindler’s List when NBC aired it uncut. IIRC, he was told to shut up and sit down in short order.
The sad thing is that only Pickering has a shot of being beaten this year. And Upton’s generally known as a moderate, what the heck is he doing? All in all this is very disappoining. Still, I don’t think many of the 218 other Republican congressmen would be this idiotic. Unfortunately, there are probably some kicking themselves right now for not signing that letter.
PBS does not write, produce, create, etc. Sesame Street. All they do is air it. I believe the Children’s Television Workshop and Jim Henson corp. are in charge of the creative aspect of Sesame Street.
Not only that, Elwood, but every country’s separate version of Sesame Street is done independently. I believe CTW licenses and monitors the shows, or something of the sort, but they do it themselves. Canada just changed ours to Sesame Park; before that, the languages were English and French rather than English and Spanish, and the like.
Oh christ, one of these numbnuts is from Michigan?
I just don’t GET what their problem is. I mean, even the dumbest shitbrick who believes that gays “deserve” AIDS or that it’s a lifestyle risk or that God cooked it up as fair punishment for their immoral sinful ways-- even those kind of lentil-brained morons surely cannot think that little kids who get HIV are guilty, getting what they deserve, or deserving of ostracism. I mean, come the fuck on. What’s wrong with talking about kids with AIDS?
I have a different question regarding the OP. How many 2 to 4 year old kids* are going to understand the concept of HIV-AIDS-Disease-death?
While educating kids, no matter where they are in the world is a good thing, it seems to me that the education should be age adjusted. I just don’t think that 4 year old kids are going to understand the message.
At the same time, when I first heard about this on TV I wondered if the focus was going to the right place. Kids do scrape knees and bleed on each other but, as far as I know, HIV does not transmit it self well that way. The strain in Africa may be different but in the US I believe there have been only one or two incidents where HIV was tramitted via cuts or scrapes.
My first thought was that we need to get the adults in Africa the information on how to stop the disease. The kids are not spreading the disease, the adults are.
sleestak–Many if not most of these kids are watching their family and neighbors die from this disease in the millions. They’re surrounded every day by those who have AIDS, and those who will. These three year olds might not understand viruses or immune systems, but that they understand the sick = death equation I can almost certainly guarantee. I think getting the message to them that AIDS is not something to be feared so much as something to be respected is very important.
Michael Ellis–hee hee Happens to the best of us. I don’t think Homebrew’ll hold it against you. [sub]unless you like that kind of thing, and he’s agreeable :winkwink:[/sub]
I don’t know about that. Ryan White was infected with HIV at age 13 from contaminated blood, and faced a huge amount of hatred and discrimination from both kids and adults (including his school pricncipal). Someone even fired shots at his house.
Granted, that was about 15 years ago, but I’m afraid there are still plenty of lentil-brained morons walking among us.