I really enjoy listening to talk programs and so on at work. I feel like it helps me use my brain a lot more and keeps me focused on work so that I'm not tempted by the internet (or my blog!). Today I found
this on the CBC News website. Having been about six-years-old when Dr. Peter's video diary would have been included on CBC newscasts, I didn't know about this at all until today. However, listening to them now, I'm struck by what a brave and bold man he was for doing this. I think that even in 2010 when most people know a certain amount about HIV/AIDS and some of the fear of it is diminished, he's a brave man to have chronicled his illness in this way. In the late 1980s and early 1990s it would have taken even more gumption to do what he did.
As you can see if you read the comments under the presentation, there are some people who still wrongly assume that HIV/AIDS is a 'gay-related' illness. I really wish that people actually listened to the information being presented on the CBC feature and listened to just general knowledge out there and realized that it isn't a 'gay-related' illness. It happens to heteros too! In fact one of the fastest growing contractors of HIV/AIDS is my demographic: Women in their late-teens and twenties.
So two points to this blog post (even if no one reads my blog): I'd like to applaud Dr. Peter's bravery and boldness, twenty years on (and the CBC for putting this on the air twenty years ago) and to say, instead of hearing what you want to hear, hear this: wear a condom.
