Subject: Sexually Transmitted Diseases

• AIDS 'n' Pagans

  This Sunday (a day named to honor Egyptian sun god Ra), Orange County pagans, witches, warlocks (maybe Moorlachs?) and other so-called heathens are using their mystic powers to fight the AIDS. That's right, I said pagans. Monotheistic religions are so passe. AIDS was first noticed in America when, in 1981, a group of young gay men in New York began to exhibit Kaposi's Sarcoma, a cancer rare outside the elderly population. Thus AIDS became a "gay" disease, as you never get a second chance to make

  June 1, 2006

• 25 years later

  It was twenty-five years ago today, June, 5, 1981, that the first cases of what would become known as HIV/AIDS were reported in the Centers for Disease Control's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. It was by no means the beginning of the disease– a recent study has identified the earliest infections as occurring in West Africa in the 1930's, when the virus made the jump from diseased chimpanzees to humans. It was, however, the beginning of understanding the disease. Dr. Michael Gottlie

  June 5, 2006

• Jerry Falwell's OC Connections

  Noted evangelical windbag Jerry Falwell was raptured today, and we're sure God strained his back from carrying that hefty sack into the sky. In honor of his death, we submit some of Falwell's brushes with our sordid county: • Back in the early 1990s, Orange County-based Citizens for Honest government paid individuals upward of $200,000 to come out with lurid accusations against then-President Bill Clinton. A Salon.com exclusive tied the group to Falwell; the group denied they took orders f

  May 15, 2007

• Got HIV/AIDS? Kick Hillary Clinton

  Perhaps preoccupied by the GOP man-boy love case in the lower house, the U.S. Senate over the weekend failed to reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act and with it about $6 million annually that helps Orange County deal with a growing HIV population and increasing number of AIDS cases, alerts the AIDS Services Foundation of Orange County. The foundation notes that federal funding patterns typically show Orange County getting less dollars as more is diverted to regions with higher HIV/AIDS rates. Ext

  October 3, 2006

• Wednesday's Headlines & Surprises: Safer Teen Sex in OC?

  Lots of Unprotected Fornications in SD: The San Diego Union-Tribune reports this morning that youths ages 15 to 24 in our southern neighbor county had a whopping 85,000 cases of chlaymdia, gonorrhea and AIDS in 2005. How’s that rank? Well, according to the newspaper, researchers at the California Wellness Foundation found what they called “an oddity” while reviewing statewide STD activity: “Orange County, similar to San Diego County in population and many other demographics, repor

  October 10, 2007

• Stint in OC inspired Obama to run?

  Last month's edition of The Atlantic profiles Barack Obama in several articles. One of them, "Teacher and Apprentice," a must-read piece on the Obama-Clinton relationship by Marc Ambinder, contains a couple of theories about what lit a fire under the man's ass and made him decide to seek presidency. One such theory involves our fair county: Many Obama friends and advisers believe that the realization he actually could be president first hit Obama on December 1, 2006, which happened to be W

  January 7, 2008

• Ron Paul Liked Bill Dannemeyer

  In The New Republic's recent critique of Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's old wacky newsletters, there's one disturbing Orange County connection, according to author James Kirchick: They frequently quoted Paul's "old colleague," Representative William Dannemeyer--who advocated quarantining people with AIDS--praising him for "speak[ing] out fearlessly despite the organized power of the gay lobby." Dannemeyer did more than advocate quarantine, of course. He once compared Nelson Mande

  January 8, 2008

• Poorman Sues KDOC

  As predicted, on January 18th Jim "The Poorman" Trenton and his attorney Brian D. Boydston filed suit against KDOC and its parent company Ellis Communications. The suit alleges breach of contract, and demands damages "in a sum according to proof at trial, but not less that $27,646" for revenues lost due to ads being pulled from the TV show Poorman's Bikini Beach, ads involving the adult DVD companies Landmark Video, Maximum Mojo, and genital wart removal specialist Dr. Jeffrey Lauber. Curiously

  January 23, 2008

• Gay Marriage Portends Increase in Urine Sex, OC Reverend Reveals!

  Usually I like to pretend Wiley Drake is really on to something when I blog about his crazy shit, but this email, which sat in my junk folder and remains there (I cut and pasted from it) is outrageously ridiculous enough to print verbatim: What Legal Same Sex Marriages Bring into society........... Oral Sex with the ingesting of semen and anal contamination bringing about hepatitis A, gonorrhea, HIV, and hepatitis B Rectal Sex brings a mixing bowl for saliva and its germs and/or an artific

  June 18, 2008

• Hewitt's Hughpocrisy

  Hugh Hewitt came out west from the Reagan White House to oversee construction of the Richard Nixon Library and, later, represent The Irvine Co. and other coastal developers in court as they sought to build whatever they desired on their land, “environmental extremism” like the Endangered Species Act (that Nixon demanded from Congress and signed in 1973) be damned. Hugh’s hobby in those days was writing local commentary that criticized the SoCal media for being too biased and left leaning.

  September 3, 2008

• Empty Chairs

  February 1, 2001

• My Conscience Is Killing Me

  August 2, 2001

• Planet of the AIDS

  August 9, 2001

• Less Christ, More Right

  August 25, 2005

• Chloe Lum of AIDS Wolf Is Sick. No, Really

  March 19, 2009

• Angels in America

  January 22, 2009

• Ed McKie Has Been Stymied in His Efforts to Create a Safe Space for Gay Meth Addicts in Santa Ana

  July 31, 2008

• Eat, Drink and Be Gay Married! After 27 Years, One Couple Finally Has Its Big, Fat, Mexican Wedding

  June 19, 2008

• Speak Out

  June 5, 2008

• Letters

  March 9, 2000

• Viva La Mujer

  May 29, 2008

• At the Miss Hermosa y Protegida Pageant, the Curves Can Be Fake, But the Messages Are Very Real

  March 27, 2008

• Hearts 
of Gold

  January 10, 2008

• The Future Is Now!

  Beirut is a timeless metaphor of the past

  January 24, 2008

• Wake Up

  January 10, 2008

• Aussie and Hairy It

  March 28, 2002

• Commie Girl

  Everyone Has AIDS! (AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS, AIDS!)

  December 7, 2006

• The Gay Inferno

  May 4, 2000

• Cognizance

  June 1, 2006

• Rent Scam

  December 1, 2005

• Dr. K KOd

  July 21, 2005

• We Must Have Syph

  May 26, 2005

• The New Woody Guthries

  March 11, 2004

• Not Not Guilty

  March 27, 2003

• Kooshian Coup?

  July 4, 2002

• Rrrrrrrrromance!

  February 28, 2002

• No Gay Blood, Please

  September 27, 2001

• Bob Outs Himself!

  April 26, 2001

• Juvenile Justice

  February 24, 2000

• Letters

  December 16, 1999

• Commie Girl: The Decoy

  June 17, 1999

• This Sister Oughta Be Famous

  May 13, 1999

• AIDS Shouldn't Feel This Good

  October 8, 1998

• NYC AIDS Walk Gets Hillary Duff. We Get Vickie Vargas

  New York's AIDS Walk opening ceremony hostessNew York City's biggest AIDS fundraiser of the year, Sunday's AIDS Walk in Central Park, will be led by actress-singer Hillary Duff, who will serve as co-host of the opening ceremony and walk with her "Hillary Duff-Walk with Love" team.Orange County gets a jump on that a day early, with the OC AIDS Walk at Angel Stadium in Anaheim. So who is our big celebrity catch?Vickie Vargas!That's right, the KNBC/Channel 4 News Orange County bureau chief--as

  May 13, 2009

• Planned Parenthood Seeks County Funds Despite Activist Supervisors

  Orange-based Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties, which had its $300,000 health-services contract voided in March due to activist county supervisors, only to have the grant reinstated Tuesday along with regulations that will make it more difficult to attain future county funds, defiantly vowed to apply this week for the new money anyway. "We will not be deterred by their persistent bias against us," said Jon Dunn, the nonprofit's president and CEO, in a statement sent to the

  May 1, 2009

• What Do Pope, Larry Flynt, Mission Viejo Shoppers Have in Common?

  Media reports that as many as 16 actors and actresses in the adult entertainment industry recently tested positive for HIV have prompted new calls for legislation requiring condom use in all porn videos shot in California. Opponents to condom use include the multi-billion dollar adult entertainment industry, the Roman Catholic Church and visitors to The Shops in Mission Viejo. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) hosted a press conference, protest and rally Monday night in front of Larry Flynt's

  June 16, 2009

• Map Tracks How OC, Other Counties Fare With HIV/AIDS Rates

  The National Minority Quality Forum created an online map to coincide with last month's National HIV Testing Day that shows what areas of the country have the most cases of HIV/AIDS. It's available here. You first have to register, free of charge, to use the map. You can then punch in a state, county and congressional district and find out how it fares. The methodology is based on the number of people reported with HIV/AIDS by county health officials versus the county's population in 2000. Punc

  July 15, 2009

• Evening for Hope and Possibility

  July 16, 2009

• B HERE is Here for Hepatitis B Sufferers with Free Art Exhibit and Live Show Today

  Comedienne Happy Slip performs tonight--and you can see her free.​The B HERE campaign that raises awareness of the life-threatening disease hepatitis B launched Thursday, but it really swings into high gear on the UC Irvine campus today. First, a free art exhibit featuring works by up-and-coming artists working in a variety of mediums to explore the many facets of the "silent killer" that impacts up to 2 million Americans opens at 10 a.m. in the Pacific Ballroom inside the S

  October 5, 2009

• In Light of Braff: Five Bizarre Internet Hoaxes

  Flickr user Thor Arvid​The world thought  Scrubs actor Zach Braff was dead yesterday for a few hours--suicide, they said. Turns out, it was just a Scrubs fan that had created a faker CNN page in 2007 that somehow resurfaced. In an age where someone's Wikipedia page is edited spookily quick to reflect deaths and accidents, thanks to technology, the internet and, yes, Twitter, news--fake or not--travels fast. And outrage and panic travels even faster. Check out this list we've compiled of t

  October 13, 2009