GRID

I've been reading And The Band Played On, it's about Aids, I think I said this in a previous entry. It's a really good book and I think everyone should read it, especially gays, since it struck us the hardest in the early 80s. It's just depressing, frustrating, and annoying at times. The government didn't want to help, neither did the media. Even the gay community refused to acknowledge it existed until it had spread too far. The book....it just lets you see what people, doctors, scientists, and government officials went through. The first sources for research came from private funding because the government didn't give a fuck if some 250 gay men died in new york city over 2 years from an incurable disease with unknown origins. See what I mean? The book is broken down into Before and After, and it comes the time between, from 1980-1985. Each section is a different year, except 1983, it's broken down into two parts I believe. Every so often there's a small paragraph that's like a death update, and each time I read a new one, it's like the death rate had doubled, and they put them every month or so, that's how fast this thing killed. The first time it got even newspaper space teh title was something like "Gay Cancer Kills Heterosexuals" I just get so sick at times reading it, but I want to finish it. I'd like to learn more about the gay rights movement in the 1970s and Harvey Milk. Oh, some people might wonder why this entry is titled GRID, well that was the first name for AIDS, I forget what it stands for, but that is what the CDC called it. Other names were things like ACIDS, aquired community immune disease, the community part being the nice way to say gay, then there was CAIDS, just move the words around, and some other names. But gays weren't the only people hit as we know, they were just the first in america. I feel like I'm rambling, but I want to talk about this, but I've got no one to talk about it to I feel.