Friday, Sep 5, 2008
In Texas, AIDS issues are about race, not sexuality
Plus: Remembering James Bond's glory days; why let a cheating husband off the hook?
Nov 29, 1999 |
Why won't George W. Bush talk about AIDS?
BY CLIFF ROTHMAN
(11/19/99)
Cliff Rothman uses George W. Bush's non-response to AIDS in Texas as a jumping-off point to discuss Bush's relationship with the gay community. But if you check recent statistics, you'll find that infections during Dubya's terms are occurring, for the most part, among poor, mostly heterosexual African-Americans.
A more appropriate discussion about the Texas governor's contribution to the continued spread of HIV would have looked at booming prison populations, needle exchange policies and access to health care information.
I am a gay man and I have lived with AIDS long enough to see the demographic changes that have come about. Given the challenges of stemming the tide of new infection -- not to mention the need to get the real story on Bush -- Rothman's gay drift on the issue was absurd.
-- Ivan Bernstein
Perhaps the reason Gov. Bush hasn't talked about AIDS is that there are far more pressing concerns for the United States. AIDS is almost entirely preventable, and it pales in comparison with the educational, military and retirement issues we face today. Cancer and heart disease completely overshadow AIDS as killers. Gov. Bush should concentrate on these issues and, when he gets to AIDS, promote abstinence until marriage and freedom from drugs -- the only two behaviors that truly prevent AIDS.
-- Ian Stoeppelwerth
Sexual charades in Seoul
BY RICHARD NEWMAN
(11/19/99)
Richard Newman's article of his encounter with and apparent confusion over his Korean girlfriend's ironic coyness is more telling of his own, typically American naiveti, both sexual and cultural. In the modern American social/sexual scene, there is no such concept as flirtation, coquettish coyness and pursuit of the opposite sex. Everything has been reduced to practical and unromantic openness. Newman is an "ugly American" confused by Asian subtleties. In our politically correct world -- where if you want to put your arms around a girl's waist you have to first contact her lawyer for a signed consent -- no wonder Newman considers coy lovemaking as rape; like a typically emasculated American male, he is fearful of any feminine display of ancient womanhood.
-- Bruce Kermane
"The World Is Not Enough"
REVIEWED BY CHARLES TAYLOR
(11/19/99)
Having come of age in the 1960s, Bond and the Rolling Stones remain the two mass cultural constants that I can't seem to outgrow. Way back when it mattered, my dad and I accompanied Mom to the theater one Easter Sunday to see a film whose theme song she had heard on the radio. The movie whose theme song ensnared my unsuspecting mother was "Goldfinger" -- a film so captivatingly cool that it had guys of my age arching their right eyebrows and donning imaginary white dinner jackets.
It had Sean Connery -- the smoothest, coolest, dude in cinema history. It had hot babes. It was superbly directed -- by Guy Hamilton -- and effectively edited. It had terrific villains; Goldfinger and Oddjob, after all, set the tone for those that followed. It had awesome gadgets -- I'm still holding out hope of finding a reasonably priced, used silver Aston Martin DB-5 -- and thrilling action sequences. The music and sound were of the mind-blowing variety, as was the set design. Most importantly, it had an air of sophisticated wit about it -- a sort of tongue-in-cheek panache that actually gave 12-year-old boys something to aspire to.
The Bond films of today sadly have none of this. They've become
caricatures of caricatures. They've lowered their standards to the level of your
typical dumbed-down Willis/
-- George A. Fuller
A more appropriate title of this review should have been "The sex is not enough." Is this guy stuck in the '60s? I'd like to think the review would be based on how the acting reflects the genre, rather than how attractive the latest Bond babe is. And what about that drivel on "uncomplicated sex" -- have we not reached the point where movies can offer women as more than just sex objects?
-- Kristoph A. Cichocki
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