Philadelphia Weekly

Negative Thinking

Regarding Kellie C. Murphy's cover story about HIV/AIDS among African-American women:

Being someone who is committed to preventing, treating and eradicting HIV/AIDS, I was excited to read this article. I must say I was extremely disappointed. The phrase, "full-blown AIDS" does not exist. No one on earth has "full-blown AIDS." Someone is either CDC-defined as having AIDS or they are not. If they are suffering from an opportunistic infection because of a compromised immune system, they are still living with AIDS, not "full-blown AIDS." This phrase is common street vernacular, and is not accepted or used in the medical field of HIV/AIDS.

The statement "Philadelphia-specific HIV statistics are grave ... " is interesting. Philadelphia statistics may be grave, but not for the staggering numbers. In fact, they are staggering because they are so low. By this I mean the amount of people identified as living with HIV/AIDS in Philadelphia is so low that it is obvious that people in Philadelphia are not getting tested for the disease. This points to the grave fact that there is still overwhelming stigma regarding the disease and what it means to be HIV-positive.

Getting Snippy

To Jeffrey Barg on a recent Angry Grammarian column about Sarah Palin:

Seriously?

Angry Grammarian: "Someone should give Sarah Palin an hysterectomy before she spreads her devil spawn any further" and "She's anxious about the impending hysterectomy we've scheduled for her" and "vindictive bitch."

I am a woman and a Democrat. I will not be beaten into submission or out of the party by the "New Democrats" who have invaded it with their crass, sexist, mysogynistic crap. Can I cut off Mr. Barg's penis to prevent him from reproducing and filling his child's head with his vile, Kool-Aid-induced invective?

So the Obamanation has dictated from on high that we should sterilize the governor of a state but we need to have understanding and compassion toward women who are manipulated by men into having unsafe sex, and who acquire HIV/AIDS in the process. We are supposed to empower them, but not "vindictive bitches" like Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, who were, at one time, well respected public servants. That is, before Mr. Barg and his ilk got their fangs into the mix.

Was Mr. Barg wearing his "SARAH PALIN IS A CUNT" T-shirt when he wrote this week's edition? Or his "BROS BEFORE HOS" T-shirt? It is so unbelievably uncalled for, but what can I say to you people? You have clearly lost the plot.

If you shit on one of us, you shit on all of us. You can hate Gov. Palin's politics all you want. What you cannot do is gratuitously espouse your sexist crap (it's a grammar column) and publish eight paragraphs of hate speech. Mr. Barg's vision of a group of citizens plotting to sterilize a "vindictive bitch" is not funny, is not productive and is not acceptable.

Why don't we take Mr. Barg's exercise in eugenics a step further and go back into time when African-American women were sterilized without their knowledge or consent? Ever hear of the Mississippi Appendectomy? Why don't you ask your Jewish friend where Hitler got his model law for racial cleansing?

Why don't you think before you publish this crap? Why do I even think you have the intellectual ability to think?

Hypocrites, heal yourselves.