.

That person is a success who has lived well,

laughed often and loved much;

who has gained the respect of intelligent people

and the love of children;

who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;

who leaves the world better than he found it,

whether by an improved poppy,

a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;

who never lacked appreciation of earth's beauty

or failed to express it;

who looked for the best in others

Bessie Anderson Stanley/
Ralph Waldo Emerson

My friend, I will miss you so very much,

__

Phil

Blood Brothers

Purple lined velvet capes, a fondness for formal wear and bow ties, Eye-liner, and Super slick hair - And despite all these obvious similarities between gay men and vampires - the National Blood Service in the UK have always given the homosexual community a very wide birth.

There's a campaign going on to have the blood donor regulations changed, to remove the discrimination of homosexuals and bisexuals. As it stands, in the UK, any man who's engaged in homosexual relations, or any woman who's had sex with a man who has, can not give blood. The reason being, these people are more likely to be HIV positive, which would infect others with the virus.

Italy, South Africa, Sweden, Spain, Portugal, Russia and France all used to have the same law, but in each of those countries, the law has been repealed.

But just because other nations think the reasons are invalid, should we believe them and follow suit? As a spokesperson from the NBS (National Blood Service) said:

“We have had these policies in place for many years in order to maximise blood safety. All our blood is tested for HIV but no test is 100 per cent. This isn’t about discrimination, our policies are constantly reviewed to ensure blood supply is maintained and kept safe.”

Is this true? It is the official policy, but that was a policy set a long time ago, when people thought AIDS was a gay disease. Most of us know better now - and because of the intense education in the gay media about HIV & AIDS, the rate of infection in the gay community has been significantly reduced, a trend which has only in recent years followed for heterosexuals as stigma of the disease has dropped too.

Let's take a quick look around the world and examine some stats...

From the US:

Women now account for 43% of all HIV infected people over the age of 15

[1]

In Korea, where AIDS is a serious problem (if it can ever said to be not one at all):

...the reasons for disease contraction were found for 3,222 of all patients. Among them, 1,377 contracted HIV through sexual intercourse with the same sex while 1,801 contracted the disease through heterosexual relations.

[2]

And in the UK:

The number of heterosexually acquired HIV infections diagnosed in the UK has risen hugely over the last 15 years. In 1999, for the first time, the rate of heterosexually acquired HIV diagnoses overtook the rate of diagnoses in men who have sex with men. During 2005, there were 3,839 reports of heterosexually acquired HIV, and a total of 32,361 had been reported by the end of June 2006. Many of the new diagnoses are in people who probably acquired HIV in other countries. However, the number of infections probably acquired from heterosexual sex within the UK has soared from 180 in 1998 to 521 in 2005.

[3]

Surprised about that last one? The disease is indiscriminate. Anyone can and do carry it, there are many ways to contract it, including just about every form of sexual intimacy.
Many cases of HIV go undiagnosed for a long time, as the disease may not present symptoms and heterosexual men are unlikely to have themselves tested for it without very obvious signs they have it.

To be honest - I don't care much about blood donor laws. I'm not scared of needles but I'm not there greatest fan and if you say I can't give blood selflessly then well... of all the prejudices, I think I'll be ok with that one if you really have to. But it's not about any of that. It comes down to the same thing for me as for the NBS Spokesperson there. It's about HIV, and this law serves to reinforce the inaccurate and dangerous views that 'homosexuality is the cause of AIDS - if you're not gay, you never need worry; if you are, serves you right'. That kind of opinion encourages the persecution of the suffering, and to be blunt, it kills people.

If the law really was made as a protective measure for this very issue, and gay men have vastly reduced their infections by education and responsibility while heterosexuals have not... the law should now flip shouldn't it? Seriously... why are straight men allowed to give blood? In the US - why allow women to give blood? In Korea, should they allow any men to donate? I think I heard a while ago the rate of heterosexual infections had declined also, but even now, the truth is there isn’t much of a difference in percentage, and while the situation was reversed, the lack of change in the law showed that the law was little based on safety. These days, all blood is screened for any problems, and while no test is 100% accurate, they’re not far off, and we run the risk whoevers' blood it is. My blood, specifically, has a much less chance of having any infections than the vast majority of donors - so where's the sense?

There are more quantifiable differences on HIV infection rates between rich and poor, geographical areas, age, sex, and social interests – none of these factors are worried about when taking blood donations because it will all be screened anyway – but if HIV was the concern despite testing, there’s no excuse for ignoring these issues.

In fact, if we're targeting sexual activity in the screening process... and that's not an unreasonable thing to do, there is only one line of questioning we really need, and it's not sexuality. The questions need to be aimed at asking what kind of sex life this person has – is it careful or not? With whom do they have sex? As for the ban on gay men giving blood? It does a lot more harm than good, if any good at all.

We've learnt a lot more about HIV, so let’s bring the laws into the right century, and take effective measures to prevent it's spread. While we're at it, it wouldn't hurt if we all individually learnt a little more about HIV and AIDS, especially at this time as we fast approach World AIDS day. It's time to lift the prejudice of HIV.

To sign the petition on the blood ban, go to: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/bloodban/

To learn more about AIDS and World AIDS day, I'll pass you on to: http://www.worldaidsday.org/
__
Phil

[1] New York Times, 11/98
[2] The Korea Times: Based on data collected by the Korea Center for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC)
[3] Avert: UK Summary

Aggressive Stupidity

This weekend I spent a lot of money, but I got to see Mark, Alison, and Chris in Sheffield, and my old uni mates in Manchester – both hose things were worth every bit of course.  It was a little ragged – lots of travel and not much rest, and I could have used a bit of that, but it wasn’t going to be too bad until the train journey home.  Having not slept too much the night before and already having spent over 2 hours on the trains/buses today, I just wanted to get home.  Unfortunately, the carriage I sat on was full of rowdy yobs, and an argument between the yobs and the civilised people broke out before we even left the station.  The Train Manager gave the lads a warning but they were hardly peaceful as we moved on, and kept telling everyone as loudly as they could that after the stop before theirs, they were going to cause a riot.  Yay.
Luckily, the train broke down before we go to that point.  Yay.
We stood on the freezing cold platform for 40 minutes while another train was called in.  It was of course, much shorter, and there weren’t enough seats.  So the rest of the journey was even more comfortable and while the yobs were split up in the chaos and settled down for the rest of the trip, the whiney screaming annoying piercing little brats a few seats up were more than ready to step into the breach and ensure that no-one on the carriage could maintain a shred of sanity.

Rolling into St. Pacras, I walked all the way to the Northern line southbound platform in my zombiefied state before I discovered it was out of action on both routes all the way to Stockwell, and you had to find alternative routes.  Walking back up and to the Victoria line, I headed south to Stockwell, waited 20 minutes for a Northern line tube, and stumbled from Clapham Common station to my flat.

I got some food, chatted to Jon a bit, then Suz on the phone, and went to sleep.  I was woken up at about 4am by a table crashing down in my room, and then again at about 8:00am by Mattius (who I hung up on :P) and then… again by my alarm at 9, and got up about 10.  I didn’t think I’d ever get out of the shower while I stood there in the hot water (first shower since Friday incidentally so I was pretty scanky by then), and managed to get ready, take deep breaths, and drag my feet to work, quite a bit late.  Yay.

The astute amongst you may have noticed my blog hasn’t been much about me lately – just reviews and little things.  This isn’t because nothing’s been going on – it’s more the opposite really and I don’t think I’ve either had it in me or felt it right to blog about any one of the things that constitute the big pile of ‘stuff’ that makes up my life right now.
It’s fair to say, the last month or two have been a train wreck in pretty much every aspect.  Finances, relationships, work, time, health, and all the rest of it – I feel like I haven’t really stopped or achieved very much, if not made things worse where possible.

Not too get too gloomy – I figure everyone who reads this, being related to my life in one aspect or more share the exact same crap situations in some number, so you probably understand and know it’s just something we all have to get through.
I wish this entry was about coming to the end of this time, but I think the hardest parts are still ahead of us and I sometimes feel I’m already beyond my limits.  It’s times like these when it’s good to have places to retreat to emotionally and mentally if in no other way.  Some people suggest prayer, and while prayer is important and effective in some ways, I find in times of hardship prayer is far from restful.  It’s the ground on which you battle the deepest impact of the difficulties – I tend to get pretty intense to be honest.  The church of course is there to give rest and support in times of need, though the church is far from that role in my life these days – I find it quite hard to be around some of the other Christians I’ve been running into, and not feel offended, disrespected and to generally despair within a very short space of time.  I’ve even got a little angry at people I should never feel angry towards, and I’m challenging myself to hold those responses and feelings captive, but if they were to take a break from aggressive stupidity for a while that’d help a lot.

Anyway… I guess I’m saying it was time to do a blog about me, and to round up – I’m a very busy, unstable, useless, high stressed and exhausted mass of steaming emotion who had a very bad train journey home and not nearly enough sleep, on a very uncomfortable bed.
__
Phil

Cartoon Musings

I didn't find anything. So instead, I'll just tell you about that comic. For those people who follow all the links on blogs, to see that bloggers friends blogs, and then click through that bloggers links to see their friends blogs too... and you know who you are - you may find this blog entry little more than a reminder of something you've found already. For the rest of you - let me draw your attention to a link on Carl Baker's Blog, to the 'We Blog Cartoons' site.

They're worth a look - here's a few I found spoke to me:

All I need is a tall ship, and a star to sail her by...

If you could have a starship... you know - find one (or a way to one) that no-one new about in an underground cavern by some crazy series of events tomorrow afternoon or something... what would you want it to be like?

There's the small crafts, like X-Wings, Tie Fighters (Star Wars), Shuttle Crafts , (wokbee?), Star Fighters (Star Trek) and so on. You might go so far as to include runabouts and Raiders... nah - we'll put them in the next group. These small one or two man ships are usually short - mid range, relatively low top speeds. They can fly in atmospheres and space, easy to find a parking space or hide away, and of course - they mostly look cool. Usually built to one purpose (fighting/scouting/bombing/ferrying) you'd have to pick from the range carefully - but you'll be independent, and get good miles to the gallon.

Next up, your small freighters. Serenity (Firefly/Serenity), The Millenium Falcon (SW), Starbug (Red Dwarf), we said we'd put runabouts and raiders (ST) in here. D-12's would go in here too (the really small Klingon Bird of Prey's - ST). These things usually have a bit of character to them. Rickety barges, these ships can be crewed by a handful of people and host many more in emergencies. They're a little more adaptive in their purpose but still not really covering every base. Needing a crew, you're not so independent as such, but the crew as a whole don't need much in the way of supporting infrastructure so you wont exactly be tied down either. Atmospheric flight and longer range/higher speeds - you still wont be beating the larger vessels for raw power but you can boast of your tweaked focused performance areas. Good for freight and long term adventure - you have to know your limits, but these things can be a lot of fun. Oh, and if you're not into slumming it on the Serenity or Falcon - Star Trek brings you the Nova, which brings you a nice clean feel option to this size class.

Now we're getting into the big boys. The Defiant (ST) can be staffed with a crew of 50, but there's not much leeway on that number. Tactical Small Cruisers, Large Freighters - the Voyager (ST) is probably at the larger end of this group and in between you have the Klingon K'Vorts (ST), Corellian Corvette's (SW) and... okay I'm not really sure of that many ships in this class. Quite a lot of Trek options but I'll need help to name ships outside that verse.
They're geared to particular function but they don't do to bad at covering all the bases. Those geared for combat are fast and punchy, usually way overpowered for their size and built to live fast die young. Do the damage - survive if it's convenient but make sure you do the damage. The freighters in this class have massive storage capacity for planetary scale deliveries. The exploration vessels are disgned for fast efficient long range travel and everything people need to be self sustaining for several years if need be. They do need maintaining though - of the kind that a handful of people can't provide, and you *will* need a proper crew to get it to even move. They can be fast, and while they can't sustain very high speeds over long distances, they have decent cruise velocities. (And these often look damn sexy too).

For those of you who aren't looking for the weekend away or gap year options - and if you have a few hundred friends on your MySpace tally - you might consider a real Starship.
This becomes a lifestyle - it's huge community ship. Battlestar Galactica (BSG), The Enterprise (ST - if you know to ask which one, you know the answers yourself), Star Destroyers (SW), Red Dwarf (RD), and the Alliance Cruisers (FF/S). These things are cities in space - they do everything from schooling and restaurants to battle and research. You *need* a large crew, regular services, a secure fuel source and much more - owning one of these things is no walk in the park - but you do rule the stars. No where's too far, no where's unreachable. If you want to stare down a space monster or the fleet of hostile patrol/scouting ships - this is the thing you're going to need. Holodecks, spacious quarters, and power. Yup - there's definitely an attraction to being a player in this league, but it'll come with a price of some responsibilities and a need for many many others.

Me... I think I'd like the Defiant, the K'Vorts... that sort of thing. One that can handle atmospheres and cloaking would be a great feature to have. Having said that... needing 50-100 people to make it usable is just inconvenient. I'm going to cheat! I want the voyager, with a Delta Flyer style shuttle - for those times you need to just nip out to the shops on your own.

__
Phil

P.S. I love star ships :-D Go on... geek out!