The International AIDS Conference is drawing to a close and with it, so is my long overseas journey. Tomorrow I’m off to London, then Singapore, then Melbourne and home. I’m ready.

The conference has been amazing – there is much good work being done out there and I’ve found plenty to be inspired by, challenged by, and occasionally angered by. I’ve met some fantastic people, including this guy, this guy, this guy and lots of others who aren’t so easily linked to. Plus I’ve renewed a lot of friendships built up over previous conferences and events.

The two “big deals” out of this meeting for me are the microbicides breakthrough (of course) and the focus on criminalisation of HIV transmission/exposure, and the complex legal, ethical and public health challenges associated with that. I’ll be writing about those two for an upcoming issue of Positive Living.

As the meeting winds up, it would be easy to be dismissive of the prospects for anything to really change in the course of the HIV epidemic – to judge the event as long on talk and short on action – but I’ll suppress my usual cynicism and say that I do think these events make a difference, if only to remind those of us working in the field of how much remains to be done and how comprehensively the leaders of the world have failed to take decisive and meaningful action to save people’s lives.

We are making progress. We have new prevention technologies coming on line – the successful CAPRISA microbicide trial will be a milestone in the history of the HIV epidemic, and there is every reason to expect that research into pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and treatment-as-prevention will give us new prevention tools and the hope of a prevention paradigm that goes beyond the “just use condoms” message that I have argued is unsustainable in the long term.

Unfortunately, not a lot of this is getting through to the people who have the power to make decisions, and so often we see public policy driven by prejudice, fear and moralisation rather than evidence of what works. As Gill Greer, Director-General of IPPF, said in a session the other day, “when morality gets in the way of policy, the result is too often morbidity and mortality.”

One of the perennial set-piece events for the International AIDS Conference is the big, colourful march through the centre of the host city demanding universal access/equal rights/new drugs/whatever the focus is on this time round. Last night’s event, marching through Vienna to Heroes’ Square, was no disappointment.

Many thousands of activists, advocates and people living with HIV made a loud, brash and joyous sight as they moved through the city. For me it’s the one moment of jubilation in a long week of scientific data and depressing news about the march of HIV in the developing world. This year we had extra cause to celebrate – the fantastic news this week about the success of a vaginal microbicide trial – and we made the most of that while working to highlight human rights issues. Will (above) decided he’d stand up for the human rights of African men’s foreskins.

Lots more photos on Flickr.

The MOSOTOS people have a better approach.

From Research for Sex Work, Issue 10 (July 2008):

US funding restrictions applied to anti-trafficking and HIV- prevention monies have cowed many service providers and implementing agencies. Furthermore, the requirement that one-third of US HIV-prevention funding be spent on abstinence programming has directed funding toward faith- based organisations (FBOs), most of which have little if any experience with HIV-prevention, and away from evidence- based, proven-effective HIV-prevention. Sex workers are hard hit by these restrictions, and the effects hurt not just sex workers but everyone in their communities. Sex workers had mixed feelings about the reauthorization of PEPFAR because of these restrictions. While PEPFAR offers life-saving medicines to many who would not otherwise receive it, the PEPFAR reauthorization bill included, at time of going to press, restrictions that prevent sex workers from receiving services. These restrictions promote discrimination against sex workers.

I love the way these guys stand up for themselves.

For more information about the organisers of this action and the issues behind it, visit the Global Network of Sex Work Projects.

The best conference handout in a long time is the faux “Conference Newsletter” produced by TB activists under the name MOSOTOS (More Of the Same Old Talk, Opinions and Speeches). Clever use of humour and satire to highlight an important issue. Below, and over the fold, are some samples. A PDF version of the whole magazine is available – check it out.

Bill Gates, in a speech this afternoon to the XVIII International AIDS Conference in Vienna, speaking about the slow roll-out of HIV prevention and treatment efforts:

Two decades ago, the skeptics said: “We can’t make drugs to treat a virus.” But you persisted – and now they can. Then the skeptics said: “We can make the drugs, but we can’t make them cheap enough.” But you kept pushing – and now they do. Then the skeptics said: “We can make the drugs cheaply, but we don’t know whether people will stick to the regimen.” But you insisted – and now they know.

Gates gave a presser immediately after the speech, in which he was asked a question about the Robin Hood Tax, a tiny 0.05% tax on currency transactions that would raise at least $700 billion a year to help fund HIV treatments and prevention.

I don’t think that would work – I’ve heard a number of experts from the financial sector say they don’t think that would work. So no, I’m not in favour of the Robin Hood Tax. [1]

Aren’t those the same arguments he just criticised a few minutes before? Is he blind, hypocritical or just dumb?

Note 1. Not a direct quote, but an accurate representation of what Gates said. Sorry I didn’t get it down verbatim.

Photo above: Bill Gates © Paul Kidd 2010 – CC-BY-NC-SA license.

Having spent the last six weeks gallivanting around Europe and the Middle East, you’d think I’d have become used to culture shock by now. Arriving in strange countries where you don’t speak the language and have no local currency, crossing international borders in the middle of the night – yes that’s all part of the rich tapestry of travel. But on Saturday morning I found myself in the first (pre-conference) session of the International AIDS Conference – after six weeks of holidays that was quite a culture shock in itself.

“Oh yes, AIDS,” I thought to myself. “Where were we?”

It hasn’t taken long for the old instincts to kick back in and I’m working my arse off getting to sessions, meeting people and talking, thinking, living, sleeping, eating and drinking nothing but HIV for the whole week. Vienna is nice enough although it wouldn’t have been on my list of cities to visit had it not been for this conference.

I have a nice apartment in Kuttenbrückegasse which, to my surprise, is conveniently located directly across the road from Vienna’s most popular gay sex club. Naturally I have not ventured in there, being the paragon of moral rectitude I am, but the front entrance is visible from my apartment window and I have set up an infra-red video monitoring system so I can blackmail all the AIDS Conference delegates that I catch going in and out. Please have your chequebooks ready when I call as I have a big holiday to pay off.

Things are moving swiftly here and it looks like there could be some exciting news on microbicides tomorrow. I really enjoy these events and get really energised about my work, but they run from dawn to dusk every day and there is little let-up, so they are exhausting. There are some photos in this Flickr set and that will be added to over the week. Plus I’m doing some posts for napwa.org.au if you want the serious take on what’s happening.

I could go on about the relative merits of the parties, but if you want meaningful action on climate change, genuine equality for gay and lesbian Australians, a compassionate response to asylum seekers, fair workplaces and investment in public services and public transport, there’s no real option. Reject the major parties race to the bottom and vote for the Greens.

I am sitting on the roof terrace of the Side Hotel in Istanbul, eating breakfast, alone. The morning sun is hot on my back and there are beads of sweat on my forehead, although it’s only 8 a.m. The bright light makes me squint as I look out at the domes and minarets of Sultanahmet Camii (the ‘Blue Mosque’) to my right and the calm waters of the Sea of Marmara to my left.

The sky is full of birds – big silver gulls, calling and squawking and stealing food from the breakfast plates; crows, black and grey feathers and beaks, murderously red-eyed; and little swifts diving and weaving through the sky like kids at play. The sounds of the seabirds and the smell of the water remind me that this is a port town.

A gull has stolen a piece of bread from someone’s plate, and on an adjacent rooftop an all-in battle is being pitched over it. These birds are much bigger than the gulls in Australia; they seem to be about a metre from wingtip to tip, with long yellow beaks and big heavy bodies. One of the big gulls has forced another down onto the roof tiles with its foot and inserted its big yellow beak into the unfortunate one’s craw, trying to extract a morsel of already-swallowed food. Judging by the racket this is not a painless procedure, but it’s over quickly enough and the defeated one flies away.

Apart from the birds, and the other diners, and the millions of strangers around me in this big, noisy city, I am alone. Brent has taken a taxi to the airport and by now he’s in the air, headed for home. We said our tearful goodbyes on the doorstep this morning and I went back to my room to think about what lies ahead. The next three weeks are my own, as I get to stay in the dream world of this summer holiday while he returns to the cold and dark and drudgery of work. We have travelled well together here, as we do everywhere our lives take us, and while I have a great fondness for solitude and while I know I enjoy these next few weeks, I will feel his absence upon me until we’re back together.

Later today I will fly to Athens, and then Thessaloniki, where I plan to spend five days in a hotel by the beach, enjoying the sunshine and the solitude, catching up on some reading and, hopefully, some writing. I have Hemingway to keep me company and to inspire me.

Image above: sketch of Sultanahmet Camii, from the rooftop of the Side Hotel, 17 June 2007 – made when we stayed here three years ago.

An earlier version of this post referred to the Blue Mosque as Topkapı Sarayı, which is hopelessly incorrect. I can only blame the lack of cofee.

Managed to get internet access again last night just as the rumours started to circulate of a Labor putsch, and a scan 12 hours later, Australia has a new Prime Minister – the first woman in the Lodge, the first atheist (that we know of), the first redhead (I think) and the first from the left of the Labor Party in my lifetime. This is good news for Australia and for the Labor Party.

Following this news from Syria, it’s hard to think how I would explain the change to Syrian observers, who have been living in a one-party state since the 1950s, and under a hereditary presidency for the last half century. Syria has a lot going for it, but a healthy democracy isn’t part of it.

I guess we could argue the toss about whether a party-room knifing represents a healthy democracy or not, but instead I’d like to nominate a few things I hope Prime Minister Gillard will achieve during her time at the helm of the ship of state.

Given her background, I’d expect a focus on workplace relations and social justice issues to be central to her ethos, just as foreign policy and managerialism were hallmarks of Rudd’s. I hope we’ll see a new conversation about asylum seekers and new approaches to meeting our responsibilities ethically and compassionately. The detention centre on Christmas Island must be closed, and the hysteria taken out of the national debate through some real leadership in this area.

Climate change is the other big challenge and I hope the new government will go back to tors and redevelop their emissions trading proposal in a way that makes real reductions in emissions and sets the foundation for a zero-emissions Australia. Meaningful investment in alternative energy is desperately needed and the coal lobby’s influence in this area must be shunned.

On health, I hope the ALP goes to the election with some real game-changing proposals for health reform, beyond the paper-shuffling of the recent reforms. A national dental scheme would be welcome. I’d welcome the junking of the 30% health insurance rebate, but I suspect that’s a bridge too far.

On communications, the proposed national internet filter should be immediately junked, and if possible I would like to see Senator Steven Conroy locked in a small, windowless room where he can do no further damage.

For me personally, I want my relationship to be recognised, properly, formally and at the federal level, through same sex marriage (unlikely) or a national civil partnership law. If nothing else, I want the debate on this issue to move beyond the rote recitation of the “one man, one woman” shibboleth.

And for Julia, I hope she can provide the leadership, and the resistance to factional influence, that the ALP and the country needs. Watching Kevin Rudd’s presser last night in my hotel here in Aleppo, I noticed he referred to unnamed forces influencing policy on climate change and refugees – which I took to mean that he had been frustrated in these areas by factional forces. The ALP needs a strong leader who can keep the factions in check, and keep the party to its promises. Whether Gillard is that person, I guess we’ll know in due course.

Finally, to Kevin. I will confess to a mote of sadness in the way that Rudd was deposed. Like a lot of Australians I had tremendous hopes for him in 2007 and it has been heartbreaking to see those hopes dashed. Rudd brought tremendous energy to the role of Prime Minister and carved out the beginnings of an enhanced foreign policy agenda for Australia – I hear he has said he will recontest his seat at the election and will serve on the front bench if asked. I hope Julia makes him foreign minister. It’s a job he could excel at.

Get the merchandise! Visit my RedBubble store for Julia 10 and PMILF T-shirts, hoodies and stickers – they’re going like hotcakes!

The city fathers may have designated it ‘Sharia al-Mutanabi’, but the locals know it as ‘American Street’ – a few blocks in central Lattakia crowded with western-style restaurants, fast food joints and trendy cafés, all decorated in what Syria imagines to be the American style, and where, every night, a curious Syrian version of a very American tradition plays out: young people cruising the strip.

From early evening onwards, reaching a peak about 10 p.m., young people mix and mingle along American Street, coalescing, dividing and recombining in small groups all along the street.

The girls are slim and pretty, unveiled, wearing makeup and jewellery to highlight their dusky, alluring faces. A few wear skirts but most are in tight jeans matched with brightly-coloured tops and high-heeled shoes. They chatter and giggle and snipe like girls anywhere.

The boys are all swagger in their fashionable jeans, Armani t-shirts and shiny leather shoes, their think black hair slicked back or cut short and complemented with a neatly trimmed beard and a saturnine air. They swap cigarettes and stories and watch the girls go by, like boys anywhere.

Outside the Belgian waffle place, a pair of youths lean against a steel cabinet and pass the time of day. Watching from the 50s retro diner ‘Café Express’ across the street, what they’re talking about I don’t know, but I bet it’s football. The whole of Syria is talking about football – it’s World Cup time. A couple of other Lattakian lads wander by and soon two become four, or six, then two again. It’s never the same kids standing there, but they’re always there.

Later in the evening, it starts getting busy after about eight. The restaurants fill up and the street is thick with adolescent hormones. Crowds of boys linger on the corners, lean against lampposts and sit on railings, individuals moving freely from group to group and the chatter and laughter perfuming the air. The girls move in groups too, nervously past the boys and into the cafés, all of which have big windows so no-one has to miss the action taking place on the street.

It’s a scene from 1950s America – a newly-liberated ‘younger generation’ toying with newfound freedom to occupy the streets and revel in youthful desire and desireability – but with a distinct Middle Eastern flavour: a kind of ‘Syrian Graffiti’. Despite all the primping and pouting on one side of American Street, and the swaggering and strutting on the other, the two groups rarely mingle, and you won’t see young lovers parading arm-in-arm down the street or making out in the back seat of a borrowed car: this may be American Street, but its still Syria.

Whether the dance ever moves beyond the furtive glance of the occasional exchange of a few clumsy words, I don’t know – I could only observe from a distance, through the big glass windows of the Express Café, and wonder at the familiarity of it all.

Photo above: Boys outside the Belgian waffle place on American Street. Photo by Brent Allan.

“Australia.”

(PAINED EXPRESSION) “Australia no good. Four-zero.”

[...]

“Hello! Welcome in Syria! Which Country?”

“Australia.”

“Aussie Aussie Aussie!”

[...]

“Hello! You like football? World cup? Which country you like?”

“I’m from Australia, so I like Australia.”

(PAUSE) (GALES OF LAUGHTER)

I’m sitting on the balcony of Beibers Hotel, having a cup of tea and writing in my diary. Just a few hundred metres across the steep valley is Qala’at al-Hosn, or Krak des Chevalliers, the magnificent twelfth-century crusader castle that we’ve come here to see.

Mohamed, the young kid who brought my tea, sits across from me on the balcony rail. We’ve already had the obligatory football conversation (the World Cup has captivated the interest of everyone in Syria, or so it seems) when he sees me looking at the castle and asks if I think it’s beautiful.

“Yes, of course.”

“Why? Why do you find this castle so beautiful?”

“Well, it’s an astounding piece of architecture, a tremendous feat of engineering, and so dramatically positioned there at the top of the hill with the steep valley falling away from it. Plus it’s an artefact of a bygone era, a time that was both romantic and very bloody.”

“I do not find this castle beautiful.”

“Why not?”

“I see it every day. I have seen it every day for my whole life. When I sit out here on the balcony I do not even look at it; I do not see it.”

I suppose that’s why we travel – to see things that are outside our everyday realm, and to discover the beauty that lies in them – a beauty that sometimes only a visitor can see.

(Photo above, Qala’at al-Hosn, seen from the balcony of the Biebers Hotel)

I suppose for a 14 year old Syrian boy, having a foreigner sit down next to you on the Palmyra-Homs minibus qualifies as cause for excitement and a guarantee of entertainment for the otherwise dull 2–3 hour journey ahead – at least, the expression on his face and his intense interest in my every movement suggests so. I am the journey’s entertainment. The Playstation Portable of the Middle East.

We have caught the bus with seconds to spare – a feat achieved by having our taxi driver pull up in front of the bus to prevent it from pulling out – and I have the last available seat. Or so I thought, not having counted on the moulded plastic chairs which would soon be installed in the aisle of the tiny bus for passengers picked up along the way. Once those are full, additional passengers sit on the steps, or the floor, or hang on as best they can.

Up in the back row, Rasheed and I are getting on famously, although wordlessly. Not so the old man on the other side of me, who does not understand that salaam alaikum represents the vast bulk of my Arabic vocabulary, and prattles away at me, using the popular technique of endlessly repeating the same question in the hope that eventually it might make sense to me. The fact that he’s sitting on my deaf side as well doesn’t help.

Rasheed also speaks only Arabic, but his body English is easy enough to understand: You wipe your brow with a handkerchief and fold it before putting it back in your pocket? Hilarious! he mimes. You bring your own water in a reusable bottle rather than drink the free tap water available on board? Wait till I tell my friends!

He seems interested in the book I’m reading, so I show him the cover and explain, in English: “Hemingway. He’s rather good.” Not much recognition for the name but he’s smiling and making ‘thumbs up’ gestures at me, so I guess he approves.

Once we get out on the highway, the bus is getting too bumpy to read, so put the book in my bag and pull out the iPod, to escape the incessant Arabic pop music blaring over the speakers in the bus.

The bus is hurtling suicidally through the Syrian traffic, which seems always to be a kind of death-defying pandemonium where lane lines are just a suggestion and the only universally adhered-to road rule seems to be “always give a toot on the horn before doing something batshit crazy and risking your life and everyone else’s”, so I’m listening to some calming jazz to quiet my anxieties, and Rasheed’s interest is unabated, so I pass him the redundant ear bud and we share a little Chet Baker together. He sways his splayed fingers back and forth to the music in the hep-cat style, but after a few seconds he passes the earpiece back to me and shakes his head: Chet Baker’s not his style.

Eager to please, I mime hang on, I’ll find something you’ll like and flick through the playlists looking for something that might appeal to a 14 year old Arabic kid sitting up the back of the Palmyra-Homs microbus as it hurtles across the Syrian desert toward Homs, or death, whichever comes first. Got it. Put your earpiece back in. You’ll like this.

So let’s dance through all our fears,
War is over for a bit,
The whole world should be movin’ through your heart.
Your disco, your disco, your disco needs you…

Rasheed’s eyes widen and shine, and we start laughing and dancing in our seats, sharing a moment of Kylie-ecstasy so much like, and so different from, all the others I’ve shared before.

So in a few years’ time, when Kylie is about to embark upon yet another concert tour to the Middle East, you’ll know where it all started.

(Photo above: on board the Palmyra-Homs minibus. Click to enlarge.)

I’m sitting in the shade under the big stone arch at the entrance to the Temple of Bel in Palmyra when they amble up the hill towards me.

She: puffy and pink-faced in floral dress, sensible shoes and leopard print parasol, accompanied by the obligatory local guide. He: ruddy and corpulent in beige slacks, beige safari jacket (‘African Safari’ brand) and beige fishing hat, twenty metres behind. The outfits look like what English people of a certain age and class would imagine to be the proper kind of duds for a journey into the levantine, or darkest Africa. I wonder if they have steamer chests in their hotel room.

She arrives at the top of the ramp and dodders her way next to me under the tiny sliver of shade that is the only escape from the brutal sun, ignoring the guide who is pointing out the inscriptions and architectural features of the temple in a weary monotone, and turns back to the view of the temple walls, the massive corinthian columns and the rest of the ancient town and the mountains beyond. It’s the same view I’ve been taking in from my shady vantage point for the last few minutes.

“Oh how sad. What a pity they had to put that awful television tower there. I’d have thought they could have found somewhere more suitable and not spoil the view.”

She takes a photo and sighs, disappointedly.

Me: “You can always Photoshop it out later.” Look of horror #1.

Then he, huffing and heaving, finishes dragging himself up the hill, arriving just in time for her to leave him there, as she heads into the cella to enjoy more of the guide’s rote droning.

He takes off his hat and wipes his forehead with a handkerchief. “Ruins. More ruins. I’ve had enough of ruins and ruined cities,” he mutters as he galumphs off after them. “From now on I only want to visit living cities.”

Me: “Yes, get in early. After all, the living cities of today are the ruined cities of tomorrow.” Look of horror #2.

Brent, later, in the hotel room: “Sometimes I wonder if you have Tourette’s.”

Photo above: Syrian television tower, partly obscured by the Temple of Bel, Palmyra.

Yesterday we took a day trip to Bosra, the ancient town a couple of hours south of Damascus that is home to one of the best-preserved Roman amphitheatres anywhere in the world, as well as a substantial Roman town.

It’s hard to do justice in words to the sight of this massive, ancient structure sitting in the middle of the desert – it was “lost” for about a thousand years, buried under desert sand and built-over with local houses, thus remaining preserved under the sand until it was rediscovered in the 1930s. One of the most extraordinary sights I’ve ever seen and all the more wonderful because there were only a dozen or so other tourists there.

There’s a set of photos from the journey on Flickr.

In other, less pleasing, news, both Brent and I have come down with a nasty case of travellers’ diarrhoea. We were planning to move on from Damascus to Palmyra today, but in our present condition a 3½ hour bus ride through the scorching desert doesn’t seem all that attractive, so we’ll stay in Damascus one more day and hopefully be feeling a bit better by tomorrow.

(Photo above: Brent in the Theatre at Bosra.)

Stepping off a plane into a new and very foreign country is never an easy task, and doing so when your body is screaming for sleep is setting yourself a special degree of difficulty. We had a small mix-up with what I thought was the exchange office, but which turned out to be the place where you pay for your visa if you don’t have one. I had already obtained my visa, but the man happily took my money anyway. It took a few minutes to sort it out but it was resolved smilingly. A note to the operators of this facility, if they’re reading: the sign that says “Foreign Exchange” has a tendency to confuse first-time visitors into thinking that this is the Foreign Exchange office.

If the sound of London is the sound of jackhammers, then Damascus’ auditory accompaniment is the atonal orchestra of car horns that punctuates every waking moment. Fortunately our hotel is on a quiet street so it’s a symphony heard from afar, but it rises and falls in cadence and intensity as thousands of drivers navigate the madness of Damascus’ chaotic streets. Then there is the call to prayer, mercifully subdued as the nearest mosque is, apparently, a little way away.

After getting to our hotel, we decided that, despite our exhaustion, we’d take a brief turn around the neighbourhood to get a sense of where we are. We were both experiencing a bit of culture shock, Brent especially so because he’s never really travelled beyond the first world, and the airport madness, the white-knuckle taxi ride, the ramshackle buildings, the noise and crowds and incomprehensible language got to us both. Stepping onto the street, you get back to the human scale of things and realise that you’re not in such a foreign place after all.

Our brief neighbourhood ramble took us to the gates of the old city and the start of the al-Hamidiyya souq, Damascus’ famous sprawling labyrinth of shops and stalls selling everything from carpets to gold jewellery to everyday household stuff like sink plungers and cooking pots. We spent a couple of hours wandering (and getting lost), had an ice cream and bought some soap. Big spenders.

Tomorrow we’ll start our visit in earnest and go in search of some of the sights around town, and figure out how to get to Bosra, which we’ll probably do on Wednesday. But tonight we sleep.

I’ll try to keep you updated as we go.

Last week’s arrest of an African-Australian circus acrobat accused of transmitting HIV to a Queensland woman has, predictably, generated more than its fair share of media excitement.

In some ways it’s this particular case represents is a kind of perfect storm for reporting about criminality and HIV transmission: not only does the alleged perpetrator conveniently come from deepest, darkest Africa (racism is well and truly alive) but he’s devastatingly handsome and has conveniently left a trail of news-ready shirtless photos and even video of his appearances on a TV talent show.

Plus, he has “admitted to having sex with a number of women in several states” (in other words, he’s cooperating with the police investigation, although you won’t hear it put that way in the press) so we readily have the ‘hunt for victims’ angle and the story gets to run for days and days as we get trickle-fed details about his life and the trail of broken hearts he has presumably left in his wake.

At this point it bears pointing out that one woman on the Gold Coast has tested HIV-positive; she is the complainant that led to the investigation and his subsequent arrest and extradition. It has not yet been proven that he is the source of her HIV infection, and he is entitled to the presumption of innocence until such time as it is.

But you might think differently if you don’t read the media carefully (emphasis added in the following quotes):

AN HIV-infected circus performer who had sex with up to 12 women without telling them of his medical history will appear in a Queensland court today, as health authorities continue to search for the women involved. (‘Zimbabwe-born acrobat to be tried for infecting women with HIV’, The Australian 26 May)

A HIV-positive circus acrobat who appeared on Australia’s Got Talent has triggered a national health scare after allegations he had unprotected sex with at least 11 women, including some from NSW. (‘Hunt is on for HIV man’s partners’, Daily Telegraph 26 May)

Authorities fear at least 12 women may have been deliberately infected with the HIV virus by a Zimbabwe-born circus acrobat. (‘Circus acrobat accused of spreading HIV appeared on Australia’s Got Talent’, Brisbane Times 26 May)

GODFREY Zaburoni allegedly boasted about sleeping with more than 500 women and sometimes brought home three different girls a week, says one of his former flatmates. (‘Zaburoni’s drunken boast of conquests’, Gold Coast Bulletin 27 May)

THE tragic story that dozens — possibly hundreds — of young women may have been infected with HIV by one man is a timely reminder that more education is needed of this deadly modern plague. (‘Awareness of AIDS will save lives’, Gold Coast Bulletin editorial, 27 May)

Mr Zaburoni’s Facebook page has more than 300 friends, many women. (‘HIV man’s claim: I had Vic lovers’, Herald Sun 30 May)

Is this the evolution of a moral panic? One woman has been confirmed HIV-positive, then within days there are 11, 12, dozens, hundreds of women imagined by the media to have been infected with HIV. Then to top it off we have the crucial detail that his Facebook profile “has more than 300 friends, many women.” So has mine, and probably yours.

CC-licensed image above: alien sex fiend by boogah.

Gary Burns is in the media again, this time weighing in on the outing of NSW Cabinet Minister David Campbell in a media sting that saw him secretly filmed leaving a gay sex club.

There has been a lot of debate in the media about the sting and Campbell’s subsequent resignation. Channel 7 have put up a couple of very flimsy arguments to support their decision to air the footage:

1. David Campbell presents himself as a ‘family man’ by having photos of his wife and kids on his Christmas card. The public have the right to know the truth.
2. There are suggestions (well, innuendoes really) that Campbell, who was Roads Minister, was at the sauna on the day of a major road snafu which left drivers stuck in traffic on the F3 for up to nine hours in April.

The response to the second point is simple. The NSW government has release comprehensive phone records that show that Campbell was in his office, overseeing the response to the emergency, as he should have been.

The first point requires a bit more analysis.

It’s true that David Campbell used his family to present an image of a ‘family’ man on his Christmas card and probably other media, as most politicians do. But it’s also true that Campbell did have a family, by all accounts a close and loving family, and so it’s hard to see how he has deceived anyone here. He hasn’t, to my knowledge, made any homophobic statements in or our of the chamber, he hasn’t promoted ant-gay legislation, he isn’t taking donations from the Christian right.

He is a loving family man, albeit one who enjoys a little hanky-panky of the homosexualist flavour from time to time.

Perhaps he should have been wearing arseless chaps and nipple clamps for that photo, so that the public were fully informed. And the photo would have had to be taken in the outpatients department of the hospital where his wife is undergoing cancer treatment, lest the public mistakenly get the impression that she is fit and well. Where does this end?

We don’t know what level of understanding or arrangement the Campbells have about David’s personal peccadillos, but seeing as he has been visiting gay sex clubs for more than 20 years, one suspects this doesn’t come as a complete surprise to the family. Lots of families exist like this, and many couples have arrangements, both spoken and unspoken, permitting one or both to extra-marital entertainment within acceptable boundaries. Indeed, in some cases those agreements are what keep loving, stable families together.

So it’s hard to find the public interest defence in Channel 7 stalking this man, filming him in a compromising position, and airing the footage. And I don’t think anyone has any doubt this was a naked grab for ratings at the cost of a man’s career. Writing in Crikey, Andrew Crook also suggests a revenge motive, but I tend to think it was more likely the kind of bottom-dwelling tabloidism that Today Tonight excels at.

Which brings us to Gary Burns.

Gary is famous for taking legal action against a string of media outlets and public figures over supposed homophobic comments they’ve made. He’s a serial litigant and also a serial candidate for office – he’s stood for state and federal elections as an independent, and I think as a member of the Australian Democrats. He’s stood for a bunch of community organisations as well. In the late 1990s when I lived in Sydney he was jocularly referred to in the media as ‘the candidate for everything’.

But it’s the high-profile actions against big players in the media that have occupied him over recent years. He’s taken his next-door neighbour, John Laws (four times), Radio 2UE (twice) and Harbour City Radio to various anti-discrimination bodies. Last year he threatened action against former Victoria Premier Jeff Kennett for some ill-considered (and quickly retracted) comments equating homosexuality to pedophilia, and recently he threatened to lodge a VEOHRC complaint against Jason Akermanis for saying he thought AFL football was not a safe environment for gay men to come out.

But Burns is inconsistent in his attitude to vilification: he describes himself as an “old queen” with no problem at all, and in 2007 famously engaged in a shouting match with Lucy Turnbull in which he called her a “fag hag” and then refused to apologise.

Burns has also taken some unlikely positions and gotten into bed with some questionable allies.

In 2006, he issued a press release supporting moves by Christian fundamentalist and long-time enemy of the gay community, Fred Nile, to increase the age of consent for homosexual acts from 16 to 18 in an attempt to curb ‘pedophile activity’. [1][2]

The following year, he took this bizarre alliance one step further: in a letter published in SX, Burns called for members of the gay community to vote for Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party because of their policy of limiting further Muslim immigration to Australia, saying it was ‘necessary’ the number of Muslims be limited to 1% of the population. This from the man who has campaigned against intolerance against homosexuals.

Now, Burns has weighed in on the David Campbell story, telling the Daily Telegraph that Campbell ‘brought the scandal on himself by living a secret life’.

“There are risks involved. You can’t run around having sex in venues as a prominent minister and not expect to be recognised,” he said.

So now we have Gary Burns, the self-styled champion of gay rights, speaking out against gay men’s right to privacy. Not only that, he dismissed the claim that Channel 7 was homophobic with this crushing argument:

“If they were homophobic they wouldn’t have me on there – I’m the biggest poof in the village,” he said.

So Channel 7 isn’t homophobic because they’ve had Burns on (I can’t help wondering whether he was paid an appearance fee). Nice argument Gary.

Perhaps Gary doesn’t remember the old days in Sydney when sex-on-premises venues were routinely raided by the police and the names and addresses of those arrested would be listed in the next morning’s paper. Countless lives were ruined in this way, with people losing their jobs and families breaking up. That’s exactly the kind of queer-baiting the likes of Channel 7 has been up to in the last week, and apparently Gary Burns thinks that’s a good thing.

It’s time Gary Burns got down off his high horse and took a good long look at himself. If he really wants to be respected as a “gay activist” he might like to take aim at some of the real issues affecting queer people today, rather than scanning the news media picking off high-profile targets that just make him look like he’s desperate for attention.

I had a letter in the Sydney Star Observer about this issue yesterday. It’s reproduced below (click to enlarge).

T-shirts thirty bucks. All proceeds to me. Also available as a sticker for $2.53.

Also, don’t miss Leviticus Schmeviticus!

Hat tip: Kabi

Earth Hour, which since 2007 has been promoted by the WWF and the Fairfax press in Australia, seems innocuous enough at first glance. If you’re concerned about climate change, turn your lights off for an hour, shut off the TV and sit in the dark. The promoters of the event make a big deal about figures showing lowered electricity demand during the annual event, and claim their event raises awareness.

Awareness is not action. Climate change is the possibly greatest threat human civilisation has ever faced, and the increasingly gloomy predictions of runaway global warming this century and beyond are a call to action. Most of the people who participate in Earth Hour won’t take any substantive action to reduce their greenhouse emissions, because Earth Hour peddles the dangerous mistruth that you can combat climate change through small-scale actions like changing to fluorescent light bulbs or using ethanol-blended fuel.

To prevent global warming, the developed world will have to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90% by 2050, and even then some warming will occur before the global climate stabilises. Even the small amount of warming that has occurred to date has had significant effects, with more severe storms, widespread drought and glacier melt. Species have already become extinct. I’m sure I don’t have to go through all the science in detail.

The changes that will be required to prevent a global catastrophe are huge, and every day that passes without coordinated global action increases the scale of what is needed and the cost of acting. Symbolic actions like Earth Hour may increase awareness about climate change, but they also risk encouraging complacency – “We did our bit during Earth Hour; now we can go back to driving our kids to school in huge 4WDs and flying around the planet at the drop of a hat.”

Earth Hour doesn’t reduce CO2 emissions in any meaningful way (in fact, all the paraffin-wax candles burning tonight will go a fair way to cancelling out any saving). You could have Earth Hour 24 hours a day, seven days a week and it still wouldn’t be enough. You can’t shop your way out of the climate crisis – the only solution is to massively reduce greenhouse gas emissions now, and move quickly to a renewable energy-based economy. Climate change is a looming catastrophe that needs a ‘war effort’-like response, not a bunch of middle-class do-gooders sitting around by candlelight and singing Kumbayah.

So I’m against Earth Hour, and won’t be playing along tonight. If you happen past my house at 8:30 tonight, it’ll be modestly lit with low-wattage bulbs powered by solar energy, as it is every night. If you choose to participate, good on you, but I hope you’ll be fighting for real action as well.

OTOH if you’re one of the loonies joining the ‘Human Achievement Hour’ protest, I hope your SUV kills you.

First let’s deal with the plagiarism. The tenth par of the article is lifted, pretty much verbatim, from the website of Grace Haven Ministries, a US evangelical organisation.

Compare:

Oh dear. Naughty Gary’s been cribbing his homework, and he’s even managed to insert a couple of typos that were not in the original text. Worse yet, the passage above is probably the most comprehensible in the whole article (that’s what twigged me to the plagiarism in the first place).

OK, so he lifted a paragraph without attribution – it’s hardly a hanging offence. Let’s take a look at the rest of the article.

Ablett doesn’t accept evolution as fact – in fact he doesn’t seem to accept that Australia was once a penal colony:

Now it is bad enough misleading us by telling us we descended from convicts but to tell us we descended from “apes” – come on!

Man might look like an ape, act like a goat, eat like a pig, think like a jackass, be as stubborn as a mule and as cunning as a fox, but a man is still a man and has been that way right down through recorded history. I openly confess to being no scientist, nor will I try to pretend to be one. However, it is not hard for the average person to understand some of the basic laws and principles within the scientific world. There is so much misinformation out there called “science”, masquerading as “truth”, and because we’ve been taught to believe these falsehoods it takes an abundance of information to get these misconceptions unseated. So please bear with me as I may need to get quite technical to get my message across.

Oh dear, Gary’s getting “technical”.

First he argues that Darwin had no “hardcore empirical date”, by which I assume he means “hard empirical data”, to support his theory. Hogwash. Gary, go read The Origin of Species, and The Voyage of the Beagle. Marvel at the data, the fanatical collection and collation of data that inspired Darwin to make the greatest scientific discovery of all time. These arguments are unfortunately stock-standard among evolution deniers, as is the “evolution is only a theory” line that Ablett parrots in the next par.

But then things get interesting. Ablett’s rebuttal of evolution via a jar of peanut butter is a classic of the genre:

Yet our entire food industry relies on the fact that the evolutionary formula doesn’t work. For example, if you take a jar of peanut butter (matter), expose it to light and heat (energy) and add time you will never get new life (biogenesis) in that jar. And are we grateful about that! Why is new life impossible in a sealed jar? Because we are missing the most important aspect: information.

The very reason food is sealed is to keep information out, it’s only if and when the seal is broken that a contamination can occur because information has got inside the jar! We need to take this fact very seriously because in the food industry this experiment is conducted over a billion times a year collectively, and has been doing so for more than a hundred years, which proves that the absence of information renders life impossible.

This begs the question that since information is not inherent within matter itself, nor can it be derived from natural law, “where did it come from?”

So, let me get this straight: the fact that new single-celled organisms don’t spontaneously arise in a warm jar of peanut butter proves … what, the existence of a supreme being? And jars are sealed to “keep information out”?

I won’t go on. The rest of the article is similarly bizarre and I recommend it.

What I don’t understand is why the God-botherers are so threatened by evolution, why they can’t revise their theology to accept it (admittedly, many have). I don’t understand why the tendency towards belief in a creator-God correlates so strongly with an inability to understand simple scientific concepts like what a theory is, and what empiricism means. Maybe it’s a genetic thing.

Gary Ablett was a great footballer, and probably has some very intelligent and valuable things to say about the sport. But he should be embarrassed by the publication of this late-night rant, which just makes him look like a moron.  

I attended the Atheism Congress that Ablett refers to in his article and I have a draft blog entry about it which I’ll get up soon.

Unlike previous racist dictatorships, the North Korean one has actually succeeded in producing a sort of new species. Starving and stunted dwarves, living in the dark, kept in perpetual ignorance and fear, brainwashed into the hatred of others, regimented and coerced and inculcated with a death cult: This horror show is in our future, and is so ghastly that our own darling leaders dare not face it and can only peep through their fingers at what is coming.

Read it.

This montage will be screened tonight at 8:30pm on all free-to-air channels in Victoria. It’s quite graphic in parts but gives an indication of the types of campaigns that have been run.