Half the Sky

This December first marks World AIDS Day. It's a day I hope we'll all be happy not to mark on the calendar in years to come. Especially alarming this year is the recent World Health Organization's report Women and Health, which cites HIV and AIDS as the number one cause of death and disease in women worldwide, ages 15 to 44. To be sure, many cases result from forced sexual acts and prostitution, drug use, and lack of education and access to health care in the developing world. But the developed world has its share of women infected with HIV who can't claim a lack of awareness or education on how to prevent the spread of this Grimm Reaper. So it's no wonder that the study also found that women, no matter where they live, provide most of the health care while receiving little in return; that while women live longer, those years are not often healthy; that more than ever, a woman's socio-economic status, no matter if she's in the developed or developing world, is what predicts her health and quality of life outcomes.
There's a wonderful book out, as you can see by my selection for book of the week, called Half the Sky, written by Nobel prize winners Nicholas Krustaf and Sheryl Wudunn. Please take the time to get this book from your local library or bookseller and read through it. An amazing journey of heartache and of hope, it shows how the education of women can lead to empowerment in cultures that see women as little more than necessary for breeding more men. Simply learning to read and write gives women better health throughout their lives. And the more empowered women are, the better their communities thrive, whether in Africa or the United States.
This Tuesday, wear a little red, and acknowledge the millions of women who die every year from HIV/AIDS, our number one killer. Learn more about prevention, progress on a vaccine, and cultural differences that threaten different groups of women in this deadly disease. Empower yourself and someone you love. This December first, hold up more than your half of the sky.
For more information on the WHO's report visit: http//:whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2009/9789241563857_eng.pdf

I Can't Believe I Have a Blog

Here's the thing; I'm a writer by nature. I write fiction, non-fiction, ideas, story lines, a master's thesis, and always my opinion. I have avoided blogging like the plague, however. Perhaps it's my intense dislike of joining the "lemmings" as they follow each other blindly over the cliff. (I don't even Twitter. Or is it Tweet?) Certainly a part of me has always resisted sharing my life's intimate details with people I don't know, especially those surfing the Internet for someone else's life to follow.

But here's the other thing. Ever since I began writing term papers, my professors have told me that should life present itself with the opportunity to be the next Anna Quinlan, writing editorials for Newsweek and pieces for prestigious papers, I should snag it. No matter how long they had been assigning papers on the same subject, year after year, when my paper surfaced to the top of the stack, they had something to look forward to again. I never took the same approach, I always saw something new or differently, I was charming and coy, and I could make them think and laugh. Not bad considering some of the happier topics were alcohol addiction and caregiver burden for elderly dementia patients.

Anna Quinlan has since retired from Newsweek's editorial staff and I have no presumptions of sliding into her spot, covet it though I may. Instead, I introduce this blog and hope to entertain and inform the way we think and see things in our worlds. Even if the only person who gets a different take is myself, I'll consider it a success.

Welcome. Life is often editorialized. Now it's my turn. (Sorry for the pun Anna.)