Work at FHI is getting better and even more exciting. For the past three weeks, another new employee named Anuj and I have been assigned to meet a huge list of key FHI staff people. So far we’ve had over 20 of these meetings and have learned fascinating things about intra-uterine devices (IUDs), vasectomies, spermicides, anti-retroviral therapy (ART) distribution, research-to-practice measures, programs to integrate HIV services with family planning and more. I thought it was especially interesting how challenging it can be to find countries with adequate infrastructure to conduct your clinical trial in AND have a high enough HIV incidence rate to preserve the power of your results. Most times, you have one or the other but rarely both. Anuj and I even met the inventor of a new contraceptive device called Dr. Sokal’s Love Cushions: Dr. Sokal himself!
Today I learned that not only will I be named the new technical monitor for the national microbicide database project that starts in February, but FHI is sending me to Boston in early March for a conference called Contraceptive Technology. By day I’ll go to exciting seminars about Norplant and contraceptive commodity economics, while by night I’ll tour historic Boston in a trolley with my old Peace Corps buddy Jim.
Speaking of conferences, Clinton is currently out of town at Dreamation 2006 in New Jersey, touting the superior qualities of LuLu publishing services and creating interest in his latest game about superheroes. Just before he left, Clinton bought a 23-piece electric haircutting set and I cut his hair and beard myself! We used the ¼” setting and the detail trimmer, and he is looking good! I am very proud.
Recently, I saw an excellent gay cowboy movie (as if it were genre of its own!) called Brokeback Mountain. Those two are superb actors, and the film was a true tear-jerker.
Clinton’s parents gave us a record player for Christmas, so of late we have been enjoying the used vinyl. My latest find was a 1963 blues album by The Great Elmore James, which features a real toe-tapper called Shake Your Money-Maker. I highly recommend Elmore James to anyone, whether you are blue or not.
Speaking of things which are blue, very blue indeed: I learned some terrifying facts in the last couple of weeks that makes me wonder whether we now live under the American version of the Geheime Staatspolizei.
Scent of a Big Fat Propaganda. Radio and television stations now save a lot of money by signing contracts with government agencies. Where before they had to hire reporters to go hunt down real news stories and write them, now government agencies select and write about what they please, then sell the stories in packages to the stations as “˜news’.
Big Brother Bush. The Bush Administration says that not only is it the government’s right to listen to the telephone conversations of Americans without their knowledge, but is was “˜shameful’ that this spying program was even made known to the public at all.
McCarthyism, California style. A UCLA alumni group is paying students to tape the lectures of thirty professors blacklisted as “˜radically liberal’. They hope, they say, to help promote more conservative thought in academic settings. Huh? Crystal says: Conservative thought is an oxymoron.
