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I try to pay little attention the rambling of pundits in the right-wing media, simply because I think they're too unremittingly dedicated to their views to be receptive to any kind of consciousness-raising... and on my end, I don't their media worth getting worked up about because I'm so admittedly unremittingly dedicated to my views.

From a medical stand point of view, HIV/AIDS is obviously a devastating disease that has created a profound sense of helplessness within the medical field because it seems as if they can’t find a cure for it and though many attempts are being made; they are just that attempts---but obviously we all hope they will mushroom into something great! However, how do we address what we obviously know is here and won’t go? We have made great strides in educating people about the disease and for developed countries people with the disease actually can live longer than previous times. However, to what extent can we attribute our “ways of life” to this problem? How responsible are we for the causes of the deadly disease. Individual responsibility is often thought of when we ask these questions, but for me I want to ask: to what extent is society as a whole responsible.

Jeremy Bearer-Friend, a YP4 Leadership Academy fellow currently with Justice Now, just posted to Feministing:

Prisons are bad for everyone--not just for the people in cages within them, not just for the children who have lost their parents to them, or the social programs who have their budgets cut because of them.

Prisons distract us from the root causes of violence and ultimately exacerbate the deeply entrenched challenges of racism, sexism and transphobia facing our communities.

This piece is dedicated to the women of color who found themselves left out of the mainstream feminist movements of the 20th centry. These women bold and bravely moved on, organizing themselves in response and despite the blatant and unjust racism and sexism that was thrown their way.

Originally posted at www.feministing.com

Hello to all!

Two seemingly unrelated pieces of news caught my eye this week. First, Stanford will be instituting a policy of waiving tuition for families making less than $100,000 per year in an effort to promote diversity. Meanwhile on the country's other coast, another one of the country's most elite schools is struggling with what exactly "promoting diversity" actually means.

I'd like to preface everything by declaring that I am ridiculously inconsistent when it comes to journaling. My schedule is erratic at best and nonexistent at worst. Also, when I haven't written in a while I tend to ramble, but I promise there's a point buried somewhere. So, in the case that this "blog" isn't touched for several weeks after this entry, it doesn't mean that I'm not doing anything. Far from it, I find myself more regularly (ha!) active than ever before.

Now, in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t believe in underplaying the historical significance of Hillary Clinton’s candidacy for president, but I do have little tolerance for self-proclaimed feminists who are dismissive of other people’s ability to independently choose the candidate that he or she feels best represents his or her own values, regardless of gender.