Business as Usual

I can't believe I never actually read And The Band Played On before. I finished it today. It started with seeing Milk, the movie late last year. When I was at the book store in January, the clerks' suggested reading corner had a copy of The Mayor of Castor Street by Randy Shilts. I love Harvey so much from way back when and from Sean Penn that I got the book and read it. When I finished, I wanted to read some more so I went to the library five minutes before closing and got Randy Shilts' second book. It grabbed me from the first page . . . combined all my favorites: medical mystery, investigative journalism, civil rights, government inner workings, heroes and scoundrels.

Even though the book is 22 years old (and Shilts died in 1994), everything in it still feels fresh, immediate, and tragic. I was struck by the currency of Shilts' description of Larry Kramer's play: "As far as Kramer was concerned, AIDS was not the wrath of God but the wrath of heterosexuals. Heterosexuals had decreed that gays could not legally marry or even live together in any semblance of openness without risking ignominy. The gay movement, in Kramer's view, had colluded with straights by becoming a cause of sexual liberation, rather than human liberation. . . . Why don't you guys fight for the right to get married instead of the right to legitimize promiscuity?" [Page 557]

Shilts rightfully lets no one off the hook: "Later everybody agreed the baths should have been closed sooner; they agreed health education should have been more direct and more timely. And everybody also agreed blood banks should have tested blood sooner, and that a search for the AIDS virus should have been started sooner, and that scientists should have laid aside their petty intrigues. Everybody subsequently agreed that the news media should have offered better coverage of the epidemic much earlier, and that the federal government should have done much, much more. By the time everyone agreed to all this, however, it was too late." [Page 491]

From the Centers for Disease Control: "The cumulative estimated number of deaths of persons with AIDS in the United States and dependent areas, through 2007, was 583,298."

Make sure to see Milk: Other than his assasination Mrs. Lincoln, it is a joyous inspiration.