Because the press respected the president and he was a man held in high regard ( in most cases).
Oh yeah! Sure they were. Come ON!
Politicians have always been corrupt-where have you been?
Philster regards to your anti-working woman post.
Due to the rising cost of living, which in general has not kept up with the pay increases, most families find it prudent to have both parents employed. While much is published about yuppi-like families, a great amount of homes generate under $100,000 a year with both working.
I know several couples with children where both have to work in order to maintain the standard of living that my father, years ago, easily maintained by himself working a middle level job. However, back then my Mother could go and buy two shopping carts full of groceries for the family for $100. Today she gets one carefully selected cart for the same amount.
AIDS
It is very doubtful that AIDS was around years ago, since it has been disclosed that it is an animal virus that mutated. Like syphilis, which originally infected only dogs.
Promiscuity
Prior to the advent of automobiles and good roads, long distance travel was hard. People often, especially in the middle ages, did not go 10 miles beyond their village. Sex was not looked on as a bad thing and the level was probably elevated.
Two things might have restricted it somewhat. Christianity, which popped up, interpreted by men, started placing restrictions on it. VD suddenly arrived, which placed even more restrictions since there was no cure then.
If you stop and pull back to look at the big picture, you find a global population in the AD times of probably several hundred million. The North American Continent, and South America were sparsely populated. Africa had a technically scattered and sparse population. Australia the same.
In as little as 2000 years, the human population has grown to 6 billion http://www.popin.org/pop1998/, which, considering the attrition via disease, accidents, murder, disasters, stupidity, starvation and war indicates a really active sexual life in general.
In terms of population density and the accumulated problems inherant with such, we are worse off than before. In terms of living conditions created by the accumulated wisdom of said population, we are much better than before.
Philippians 3:13+
Forgetting what lies behind
and reaching toward
what lies ahead,
I press on…
On women working-
Women have always worked. At least, in your lower and middle classes. Women worked in factories and did piece work at home. The Triangle Shirtwaist factory, anyone?
Yes, you have heard that said, but it appears it is not true. They simply ASK if the HIV+ person has had homosexual sex, or shared a needle, and if the person says “NO”, there you go, another “heterosexual” Aids case. African men do gay sex as much as their western counterparts- but they lie about it much more. In fact, some say that gay sex is much more widespread, and oddly enuf, one of the reasons given is the fact that a lot of wives do not enjoy sex with their husband- not surprizing, once their clitori have been cut off. Of course, Drugs are easier to get there, and needles harder. For some time, also, innoculation stations were re-using needles, with the thought that not innoculating for a fatal plague would nearly certainly kill the “patient”, whereas AIDs was statistically less likely to. There are “secret tribal rituals” where the men engage in gay-sex, but do not consider themself “gay”.
That being said, we know the AIDS virus requires substantial intermingling of fluids, and cannot pass thru intact skin. Also, the vagina seems nearly “aids-proof”- IF no open sores, etc. Thus, how would a man get aids from a woman? He could give it to her, thru anal sex, but there does not seem to be any “normal” way for a female to spread it to a male. And, the much larger % of HIV+ are MALES, in Africa, where if Heterosexual sex was the vector, we would expect females, right?
Danielinthewolvesden:
On your view of AIDS in Africa: heterosexual transmission is the main vector. That is well established. Obviously there is homosexual sex, probably at rates similar to the West, maybe a little more in some places, maybe a little less in others. But there is not much IV drug use at all: simply not a vector cause its an expensive luxury. Cheaper things like alcohol etc is the way. The risk factors are different. Poor diet. Endemic disease which undermines immune systems and may produce lower barriers to transmission. Think veneral disease and prostitution. Indeed one can clearly trace AIDS hot spots by truck and migrant labor routes, along with brothels etc. Blood transmission occurs through sores etc.
Southern Africa is hit so very hard in large part because of the pecularities of its economic structure, dating from apartheid regimes, which set up migrant labor camps barring families. Migrant laborers were serviced through pools of prostitutes, sadly enough. Some really terrible public health issues arise out of such a frankly evil system.
Nor is heterosexual transmission quite as difficult as you paint it. True, not easy, but I would not start banging away with HIV+ women in great self-assurance.
RE Possible transmission of AIDS in Middle Ages.
Frankly it is impossible to know. However, the anectodatal accounts of what may have been a syphillatic epidemic after the Spanish conquest of the Americas might indicate some hard evidence. (1) Syphillis appears to have arisen from some new world strains which were extent in humans but not virulent (2) an epidemic, veneral in nature --sexually transmitted did sweep through Europe in the early 16th century. This implies that while people were not moving around as much as in our modern era, countervailing factors such as poor hygiene and diet as well as perhaps endemic low grade veneral disease overcame these factors. It also implies people were not as virtuous as some posters would like to believe. More or less than the present, who on earth knows?
A immense danger in trying to extrapolate from the modern West is our unique position.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Danielinthewolvesden *
**
I am, well, shocked to read the above.
(1) The vagina is not “aids proof” (even without open sores, although you’re right, its not a simple matter either. But then small cuts or sores, from something as innocuous as herpes or just friction is not terribly hard to acquire either)
(2) For a woman to transmit to a man we simply need an abrasion or a sore on the penis. Again, not terribly difficult to acquire.
(3) Of course a larger number of men than women have AIDS or are HIV+: they’re more likely to engage in risky behaviour and transmission is, as you have rightly pointed out, not inherently simple. However, a significant number of women do have HIV+ status, including and above all (golly this is shocking) prostitutes!
Ergo, yes, indeed, heterosexual sex is a vector.
My impression is that AIDS is alot less contagious than many other STDs. Also, it is (ultimately) fatal, which means that an infected person has a shorter opportunity to pass it on. This factor would likely has been even greater in the Middle Ages, when an individual who got it would have likely succumbed even sooner than today.
They did? Who? When was this issue even discussed, until you brought it up?
The issue you bring up is independent of any other that’s been discussed in this thread. (BTW, there is a small amount of controversy to this day as to what extent AIDS is connected with sexual behaviour)
Syphilis is also ultimately fatal. Collounsbury posted evidence of one probable outbreak of syphilis. Syphilis is known to have been fairly wide-spread throughout Europe and Asia.
Obviously slow but sure fatality is not an overwhelming obstacle to the spread of STDs.
Thanks for all the support, ladies and gentlemen.
For the record, I am of the male persuasion. 
MR
Yes, you CAN get Aids thru a “abrasion on the penis”, women CAN get/transmit aids thru sores, etc in their vagina. But these are rare, and have a much lower chance/rate of transmission than the 2 known vectors- sharing needles, and recieving unprotected anal sex. And to beleive that some 10% of the African male population has had sex with a prostitute with a syphlis sore, while they had an open wound on their penis, AND did it many, many times- well, it just ain’t so. In “The Worlds Most Dangerous Places” the writers constantly mention that drugs are a BIG problem in sub-saharan Africa, much of which has lapsed into near anarchy. Since admitting you have gay sex is a huge no-no for African men, and we know druggies are usu in denial, why not just accept that the known highest risk vectors are as or more prevelant there than here? Again, the only thing that makes these cases into “heterosexual transmission” cases is them saying “no” on a questionaire.
When we look at places with better controls, heterosexual transmission fades away into the “less than 10%” range, and even many of them are questionable.
Yes, I think Al Capone died of syphilis. But I think it spreads alot easier than AIDS does.
Are there any other widespread STDs which can only be spread through open wound contact? And I once saw on another thread in the message board that even someone who injected themselves with the HIV virus (apparently some have done so, in an attempt to prove that it doesn’t cause AIDS) has a very small chance of getting AIDS - 1% was the number, IIRC.
I believe the strain of HIV that’s making the rounds in Africa is different from the strain of HIV that’s making the rounds in North America and Europe. (I’ve heard the American/Eurpoean strain referred to as “HIV 1” and the African strain referred to as “HIV 2.”)
Is it possible that the HIV 2 strain is more readily transmissible through heterosexual vectors than the HIV 1 strain is?
I’m glad we can agree on this.
Your basis for this claim is…???
I kindly refer you to http://www.unaids.org/ for a fine collection of current information on the epidemic, with special attention to Africa.
I also invite you to visit http://www.popcouncil.org/horizons/horizons.html to read about Pop Councils excellent AIDS programs and from this point you can also search on their practical application oreinted literature.
Well, ‘much lower’ is a rather subjective comparision. Lower without a doubt.
Let me first note the straw men. Your piling on of risk factors is not a necessary condition. All kinds of veneral diseases (and in fact non-veneral diseases) can and do provoke sores in the genital area. Sex with a prostitute is not strictly necessary, but does jack up your risk factor. As I noted, in certain regions of Africa --note the specificity-- because of specific social conditions (migrant labor, lack of family housing and toleration of prostitution) frequenting prostitutes has a high rate of occurance. In other areas extra-marital sex partners are common. Again, this is regionally and culturally specific. West African nations, for example, largely have low or lower rates of infection. Certain professions are highly hit --truck drivers.
The long and short of it, it is indeed so.
I would take exception to the last line as a gross and inaccurate over-generalization. Things ain’t hunky dorrey but my work has taken me through large areas of West Africa – near anarchy is not the state. Certain countries, yes. Drugs are a relatively limited problem, (even in urban areas) and once again pay attention to their usage. Mostly glue sniffing and the like (pot smoking etc.) IV drug use is simply not an issue (with the exception of SA) mostly because needles themselves are hard enough for regular doctors to get, let alone junkies. Simply a different pattern.
I accept perfectly well the known risk factors are as prevalent in Africa as elsewhere, dependant on actual social conditions. E.g. IV drug use is just not something known or available. I’m sure if there were needles and IV style drugs to be consumed, they would be, but they’re not so excepting SA itself, this is largely a non-issue. Your cavalier statements re hetersexual sex notwithstanding, unprotected Hetero contacts are a risk factor, well documented one at that.
I invite you to swing by the UNAIDS site cited above and read about how the data is actually collected and its problems.
This kind of simplistic comparision of data from areas with different social problems and patterns does not enlighten us very much at all.
I went to you unaids site. Pretty good info. However, they still rely upon a “questionaire” to determine the transmision vector, ie there is no attempt to find out the truth.
Yes, needles are rare- which is why they are shared & even “passed around”.
The UN does not want to know the truth. They want us to think that heterosexual AIDS is the biggest vector. Why? Well, they saw in the USA that there was a decided lack of caring amoung certain large portions of the populace, when they found out that most of the early AIDS victims were either drug users, or engaged in rather “unsavory” sexual practices (group gay sex in the baths with dozens of partners). Public opinion drives the money machine, and they want the money. Are they lying? Well, say rather “hiding from the truth”.
But you can beleive otherwise, and assume that the primary vectors in nations with much better controls are in a small minority in Africa, that the transmission vectors rankings are the exact opposite from what we have seen elsewhere.
Until some magical way to verify people’s words is invented, or some means of scientifically determining transmission through some objective evidence, I’m afraid that is all we will EVER have.
This is getting a bit tedious. Do you have any information to indicate IV drug use is either common or problematic outside SA (where the practice was picked up from Europe, by extension larger exposure to industrial world habits)? Your presumption rests on what evidence? Drug use recorded according to everything I have read is limited to the glue sniffing and smoking of various substances. Ah yes, also chewing, e.g. Qat.
Drug use is a culturally bounded and determined practice. IV drug use has yet to (but certainly could) catch on in any area but possibly South African urban centers. Note, where the practice seems to occur there is data on it.
I am going to overlook your baseless attack on some of my very good friends who work in this very field (to be specific they work in Dakar) and passionately struggle on a daily basis to make a difference. Good scientists and clinicians all, their concern is finding the objective truth to the best of their ability. It makes me sad to read such tripe as this.
Hetero transmission is clearly an issue and clearly happens, fantasies aside. Those truly interested in information are invited to trying out some MEDLINE searches on the relevant literature.
There are ample sources documenting hetero transmission in the USA, despite your misinformation above.
No, based on evidence I believe the primary vectors are largely the same, although changed somewhat by differing social circumstances and cultural practices. They are not the “exact opposite” of what we have seen in the developed world.
Seems the unpopular view is always fit for some degrading action.
Let me restate my position, and this is deeper than some chauvinist making sweeping statements about women.
First of all, it is best for women to remain home and raise a family, if they have a family to raise. That is my position. That’s what is really missing from the good old days.
The economic factors will ruin the discussion, because most people are convinced that women went to work to make ends meet. I’m not so sure this is the case today. New economic factors which require women to work are BMWs, cell phones, the sixth TV in the house, the new PC, the new DVD, etc. The modern recession is defined as the inability to purchase the newest satellite dish and flat ccreen TV, not the need to cut back at meal time to make ends meet.
Maybe we can have a new thread: “I never bonded with my mommy because she pumped her breasts, dished me off to day care, went to work at 7 AM, and picked me up at 6.30 PM.”
God forbid anyone should suggest that we would all be better off if women stayed home to raise their families!
If you agree, but feel economic factors absolutely
require women to work, family and all, then we’ll agree to skip the discussion about how the economy works, and we’ll know we agree on the basic point.
However, if you feel women with families are better off in the workforce, even though it’s economically feasible to be home, then we have a discussion.
I, for one, am not afraid to acknowledge that is is much more noble and rewarding to tend to one’s family than to tend to some worthless career…
Philster, I agree mostly with you. I have been thinking about this issue ever since I bought my current house which was built in 1917. They family had 5 children. There are two bedrooms, one tiny bathroom and two miniscule closets. Total square footage is 1300. No TV, no Cell phone. In fact, no car, just a horse.
But in addition to a different persception of what is “enough” to live comfortably, I think that there was something else going on. It is my suspicion that up till about 30 years ago, most people tended to stay in their home town or to at least move with an extended family. It is a lot easier to survive with a support system. My mom is planning to move near us as soon as we have kids. This will make our life infinitely easier and allow us to raise our kid without any daycare.
Of course I could also get rid of the second car, budget food better and not eat out or take vacations as my Grandparents did. Btu then that would be uncomfortable and comfort is more important than a well adjusted kid, is it not?