My People, My People...

I watched a news magazine show last night that covered the AIDS epidemic in black America. It was insane and very eye opening. All I can honestly say is, 'What the fuck?!!?!?' My people! We are dying in droves. The infection rate for black women is like 13 times higher than white women. 50% of the new cases of HIV are black people and 60% of those are black women. DAMN! That makes no since!

Four causes of this epidemic were listed:

1. More black men of dating/marrying/having sex age are in prison than any other racial group. Sex happens in prison. 40% of men who have been in jail say they've had some sort of sex while in jail. Condoms aren't allowed in jail. (that was news to me)These men when they get out date women. Prison is a breeding ground for HIV. When the men leave they take it with them.

2. IV drug use. I honestly think thats not the reason for new cases, maybe the old. Maybe thats how HIV got into the black community in the first place. I think drug use is down in youth, personally.

3. More sex partners. For every 100 black women, there are only 85 black men. And out of that, how many do you want to sleep with? From the stats it seems the same 6. Black men have multiple sex partners and spread the infection.

4. Gay black men. They don't admit to being gay, go have unprotected sex with women and men, and give HIV to both groups.

This crap is insane!!!!!! You can't really play the blame game, personal accountability has to come into play, but damn. Black men, get your fucking act together!!! Black women, protect yourself!!! No one has to share a man. But if you want to share, use protection. There are other fish in the sea. There is a shortage of black men, yes. Date an Asian, a Hispanic, a white guy. Any gay guy having sex without a condom with guys they just met in the club need to be slapped. Black men, be gay, be safe, and leave black women the hell alone! You are killing us, literally. -mel

I walked into the future

I went to the bank for the first time in ages yesterday. When did tellers stop handling the money?!?! When did bank windows get replaced with kiosks???

I step up to the woman at the kiosks, she typed something into the computer and gave me a piece of paper....it had a code on it. I had to walk across the room, type my code into a computer and IT gave me my money. wtf!?!?

AND....to get in the bank I had to be buzzed in.

I don't like the future.
-mel

Gender, Life, and Death in Sci Fi

I just read an article about Alice Sheldon. Apparently, she was a very weighty author in the sci fi genera about 30 years ago. Many of her short stories are considered classics. The odd thing about this situation was most people thought she was a man. She wrote under the name James Tiptree Jr. Not only that, but she corresponded with other sci fi writers as a man. She won awards as a man. No one ever saw her face to face for ten years of her writing career.

She came up with that pen name while grocery shopping. She saw it on a jar, 'Tiptree'. Her husband told her to add the 'Jr.' for kicks. I read a few excerpts of her short stories. They are raw. No wonder people thought she was a man. She kind of wrote how you would expect a man to write. She wrote about sex and humanities relationship with it and around it. Some say sex was a vehicle to illustrate dominance. I say, she compared earth to a testicle and humans to sperm. Raw sex is in there somewhere.

The article spoke of how her mother was a writer and a hunter and how Alice tried her best to live up to the unattainable goal of feminine impossibility her mother had achieved. Alice served in the army, worked for the CIA and got her Ph.D. in clinical psychology. But she never felt it was enough. The article said she didn't like being a woman for most of her life. I guess she found it limiting. (Alice was 50 when she started writing in 1969) She may have also found life more difficult being considered very attractive. Attractive women were expected to be on display, to entertain, and to perform all the acts of 'keeping up appearances'.

Octavia Butler was similar and different. She lived a much quieter life. Her writing was more deep than raw. But her characters did usually deal with dominance and submission, master/slave, have and have nots. Octavia was the complete opposite of Alice physically. Octavia Butler looked like a man. I say that with love. A man. The first time I saw her in a photo I honestly thought someone was fucking with me. A few years later I heard her voice, she sounds like a man more than she looks like a man, and she was tall. But she was also shy. She spoke as a baritone, but the way she spoke was very soft and sweet.

Alice lived how Octavia looked. They both were gender bending in their life and writing. Ambiguously feminine and seemed to be at home there. Maybe the theme of dominance and submission was their personal theme of masculine and feminine, or their personal battle.

Both died strangely. Alice, still healthy at 71, had a suicide pact with her hubby. She shot him then herself in 87'. Octavia fell outside her home and died at 58.

Wanna read more about it?? huh? huh? do ya? well here you go.
Sheldon examples
Butler examples
-mel

For Your Consideration

This is Slothy, code name Slothbot. He works as a computer programmer at a video game company in the valley.

Or so we've been told.

Slothbot's work area is unlike the average programmers office. Notice his throne of technology. Slothy, I suspect is working on top secret government projects.

His ergonomic chair with the split keyboard arm rests are way too snazzy for a mere programmer. His chair looks more like a pilot seat, than anything else.




That has to be it. Slothy is a top secret pilot, flying top secret space ships. I saw him in a NASA shirt the other day. He would probably say he got it from his cousin, who is an astronaut. But I don’t believe it. She probably got him in the super secret space pilot program, that’s more plausible.

The government is building a fleet of fighter space gliders, remotely manned by under cover agents on earth. I bet there are others in my office. I should go check work spaces. There could be more techno thrones.

There is a large pyramid of diet dr. pepper cans in an office. I don't know what that means, but I'll keep my eye on it. - mel