We All Have AIDS

This Monday, Dec. 1^st is World AIDS Day. It was started by two public information officers at the World Health Organization to raise awareness of the AIDS global pandemic and has been observed every Dec. 1 since it began in 1988.

But here is its official purpose as stated by the WHO, explained far better than I ever could.

The day is an opportunity for public and private partners to spread awareness about the status of the pandemic and encourage progress in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care around the world. It has become one of the most widely recognized international health days and a key opportunity to raise awareness, commemorate those who have died, and celebrate victories such as increased access to treatment and prevention services.

AIDS Memorial Quilt honored around nation's capital — Including seeing panels of the AIDS quilt

Approximately 32 million people have died from AIDS-related illness and, in the eighties and nineties, a number of them were my friends, co-workers, acquaintances and peers.

The fact that I somehow survived through that modern day Holocaust is a random stroke of luck I will never fully understand and not a day goes by where I don’t think of someone or something that reminds me of those times.

World AIDS Day 2025: Overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response — This is more than just a ribbon

I understand why this is not on the minds of most people and I’m thrilled that HIV-AIDS is not the death sentence it was when so many in my circle endured an unimaginable and truly horrible demise.

At that time, the U.S. government, led by Ronald Reagan, turned its back on them in silence, ensuring its complicity with what amounted to the passive genocide of a significant number of young gay men who came of age around the same time that I did. There were others affected – I.V. drug users, hemophiliacs – and soon many millions more in “third world” countries not as fortunate to have access to the advanced health care that the gay community led the world in demanding.

When people around you are dropping dead left and right it’s easy to demand because nothing else much matters. And if I still sounds a little raw around this, well, yeah, it’s still personal for me.

And always will be.

Life was a party before Aids arrived in London' — This was our reality

That’s why it particularly cheesed me off when the Trump Administration this past week announced that its State Department was forbidding its employees and those receiving State Department grants from “publicly promoting World AIDS Day through any communication channels, including social media, media engagements, speeches or other public-facing messaging.”

Needless to say it also announced not a penny of U.S. government funds should be used in the commemoration.

Because…um…they can?

Because Trump withdrew America from the World Health Organization when he took office in January?

Because he thought the U.S. gave them too many millions and wanted to cut costs?

Because other countries didn’t pay enough?

Because he blamed them for Covid-19, putting a blot on his presidency and not supporting his many and vast conspiracy theories around that disease?

Choose one or all of the above. But not none.

Because the cruelty is the point.

Here is an article from the NY Times that lays it out pretty well.

Here’s two others from The Guardian if you can’t get behind the N.Y. Times paywall.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/27/awareness-days-events-trump

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/27/world-aids-day

A State Department spokesperson makes the laughable claim that “awareness is not a strategy” in defending Trump’s actions.

But if that’s the case how does it square with such Trump pronouncements as Leif Erickson Day, Anti-Communism Week, National Energy Domination Month and his proclamation declaring May 28, 2025 the 101^st Anniversary of U.S. Border Patrol?

Clearly, a commemorative day or anniversary or week or month or year is in the eye of the declarer.

Too bad a viral infection is not.

But this is the same guy who ended the global AIDS initiative started by George W. Bush, of all people, (PEPFAR), which is credited with saving more than 25 million lives from HIV since it began.

I’ll leave you all with the words uttered at the last AIDS march I attended, words that were coined by N.Y. activists in 1986, and posted beneath a pink triangle in direct reference to the Nazi era.

Silence = Death.

Andra Day – “Rise Up”

10.19.25

by notesfromachair

No Kings

Nearly 7 million people showed up to the No Kings rallies on Saturday to protest Trump administration policies and to stand up for freedom of speech and against fascism in America.

I was one of them.

Just me and Lady Lib, busy on a Saturday

Oh, no applause, please. I had to do something – if, for nothing else, my psychological well-being.

Though in actuality, it was much more than that. When donating money, calling and writing your representatives, and challenging strangers at the supermarket or at a random dinner party – all of which I do frequently (Note: And the latter two as recently as last week) – are not enough, it helps to get off your lazy, whiny, doom-scrolling ass, take to the streets and be counted.

In truth, it’s the least you can do for your nearly 250 year-old country, an experiment in democracy that was never expected to succeed.

As cynical as I am, it amazed me to hear the current Speaker of the House of Representatives publicly call this demonstration of freedom a “Hate America Rally.”

Demonstration and Dissent are the literal means by which our Democracy was founded. #TheThreeDs

Or as one of many hundreds of truly clever signs at the rally I attended in L.A. at Roxbury Park noted: “ NO KINGS – Our Founding Fathers Demanded It.”

The majority of the 2600 #NoKings rallies were in the United States but some extended worldwide – through almost all of Europe, as well as to Japan, Costa Rica and, of course, our neighbors, Canada and Mexico. (Note: Whatever they’re thinking, just quadruple it for me).

I attended with my sister, one of my favorite people in the world.

One of my other favorites, my husband, was down for the count after dental surgery but urged me to go as I planned instead of staying home with him because he thought it would brighten me up.

Also, I don’t know how much fun it would be post-surgery to have someone next to you simultaneously doom scrolling and cursing at the television while watching news coverage on MSNBC, so it could’ve been a bit of self-preservation.

Nevertheless, he was correct as usual.

I have long believed our political situation in the T—p Era is not the Dems vs. the Repubs or progressive vs. conservative. Rather, it so obviously seems to be democracy vs. fascism; multi-culturalism vs. white supremacy; Christian nationalism vs. everyone else

And on Saturday it was reconfirmed to me thousands of times over that I have by far not been the only person to feel this way.

Several thousand or more surrounded me and my sister, carrying signs and placards, chatting us up or chanting through bullhorns or to passersby variations of much the same thing.

Not only that, the pithy original slogan I had thought up to put on my own sign (Note: Had I thought to buy the posterboard and marker ahead of time) – “THIS QUEEN SAYS NO KINGS” – was literally being held high in the air by another queen right behind us.

Old people, young people, middle-aged people and people of the kind of indeterminate age you can only encounter in Los Angeles. They were all there. Wealthy, middle-class and I venture to say the not much money class. Millionaires and those on fixed incomes.

How do I know?

Well, see, contrary to popular belief, here in L.A. we do speak to each other. A really well-off woman shared with us a story of marrying a very wealthy guy decades ago when she was “younger and 20 pounds lighter” who was in real estate. Said guy took her to an industry event, introduced her to T—p and, as she put it, “he felt me up all over. He was disgusting even then!”

Of course, she didn’t just volunteer out of nowhere. She only came out with it when I shared that my sister and I were from his hometown in Queens.

Then there was the 80 plus year old smiley senior woman who several times drove her car around the block so she could honk in support of us protesters. Later on in the day she walked by on foot brandishing a ticket a policeman gave her for “cruising” in her car, and lamented about how she would pay it on a fixed income from a social security check of $748 per month she wasn’t even sure she was getting.

I wish that I’d had more than $23 bucks in my wallet or thought to say something encouraging before she moved on and found comfort somewhere else. Which she certainly did, given the crowd, the people and the “vibe.” (Note: #Bitchin’).

Speaking of comfort, you haven’t lived until you’ve stood at a curb holding a sign and received that many hundreds of wide smiles and waves from people in passing cars, that many extended and staccato car horns of support (Note: Sooo many different tones!, and found yourself met with more thumbs up and nods of approval than you have ever received in…well, your entire life.)

My favorite came from a handsome cop in an official Los Angeles police cruiser who tipped his hat slightly and nodded in approval of what we were all doing. I took it to mean, even though I’m in uniform, I still believe in democracy.

As did those in Mercedes, BMWs, Teslas, Toyotas, Hondas, Chryslers, Ford Trucks, Jeeps, VWs and various non-descript mini-vans and falling apart Kias.

In fact, the only negative reaction came from two different women in two different Porsches an hour apart. One gave a thumbs down and the other gave us the finger.