On the way home I stopped in at Kate's and Jules's workplace but they weren't there, at least according to a woman who looked like an even shorter version of Emily Holman. Too bad. I was going to invite them to the movie tomorrow, but they're probably working anyway.

But what was most interesting was what I found on TV. They were showing a documentary about Angola and AIDS. They followed this one man who had been in the Angolan army and had contracted AIDS, possibly from sharing razors in the jungle. They showed actors doing short plays about AIDS for sex workers and soldiers. I kept wishing that they wouldn't translate. I swear some of the people were speaking French, though the official language is Portuguese. (Other people were definitely speaking Portuguese, though.) The French was spoken with a slow, flat accent, sort as though it was being spoken by Nebraskans.

The documentary appealed to me immediately, though it took me a while to catch on why. I think it's because it wasn't racist. I won't congratulate it for this; that's an obligation on all of us. But it was a relief.

After the documentary portion ended Mishal Hussein interviewed Stephen Lewis. At first I was skeptical: what is a white man doing with this position? But when Mishal asked him about the AIDS sufferers he'd met tears came to his eyes as he talked about meeting people in June who were under the ground when he returned in December. Mishal asked about him why we see western leaders travel to Africa, promise relief for AIDS, but then nothing appears. Stephen suggested that these leadesr must be made from a different molecular structure to have such lack of compassion. How else could we explain a projected expenditure of $200 billion on war in Iraq and Afghanistan by 2005 when $10 billion a year would save three million African lives?

He's right of course, though I'll be harsher. Those people are not human beings. They are monsters wearing human skins. There is no other explanation.
posted by weiss @ 10:13 PM