I was taking a glance at the Metro while taking the T through downtown Boston the other day and I noticed that they were featuring Arianna Huffington as a guest commentator offering her take on all the stories of the day. This is, of course, the same Arianna Huffington of The Huffington Post, a notoriously biased online news site with a streak that makes a lot of the mainstream media bias look like nothing. And the same Arianna Huffington who made an embarrassingly unsuccessful run for the governorship in California during the 2003 Recall Election against Arnold Schwarzenegger. I wondered to myself what she might have to say about goings on up here in Boston.
I saw a story on the Pope Benedict XVI’s take on the AIDs situation over in Africa. The Pope was visiting Yaounde, Cameroon at the time. He said basically, in plain words, that redistributing condoms throughout Africa will not solve the problem of AIDs. Africa is a continent massively-effected by AIDs. Whether or not you use condoms yourself, I believe this is a pretty sound conclusion. In fact, they’ve been distributing condoms over there how long? And the AIDs epidemic in Africa has gotten how much better because of it?
Anyway, I saw in a sidebar that Arianna Huffington had a comment about it. I started reading the first sentence, bracing myself for whatever was going to come out of that mouth of hers. She started by walking about “where the overwhelming evidence points” – I give a surprised sigh of relief – oh good, she’s going to agree with me. Obviously I had spoken just a little too soon. She called the Pope a “flat-earther” hopelessly defending his position. Now, you can say what you want about the Vatican’s position on condoms, but the Pope’s comments today clarified something that should be really obvious – that the “cash for condoms” policy in the continent of Africa is a complete and total failure.
Big Media has never given much support to the Pope’s position on AIDs in Africa or any similar to it. Of course, they are all in the pocket of international family planning regimes. In order to find a more sound and candid commentary, you’ll have to check out an article by Kathryn Jean Lopez on the National Review. Lopez points out that even a Harvard professor – Edward C. Green, director of the AIDS Prevention Research Project over at Harvard, agrees with the Pope’s stance. Can you believe it? A Harvard professor is siding with the Pope against Big Media! What are the odds?!
In his 2001 book The Elusive Quest for Growth, NYU economist William Easterly listed as one of his failed panaceas of economic growth the “cash for condoms” program. Easterly examines in thorough point-by-point analysis, the absolute failure of distributing free condoms to Africans. After all, a condom is one of the cheapest goods on the international market – do you really think that anyone can’t afford them?! Of course, those who worship these programs, such as Ms. Huffington, would never admit fault.
So who’s the flat-earther now, Arianna?
Did you ask who’s the flat earther now? Or who’s the flat head now? I think if you look that over, the situation becomes clear. I do think the Guys of The Rome Funny Hat Club need to stop seeing the world as flat. But, then again, I’m a woman and not valued much as an equal by that group. As to near-do-wells like Arianna…what can one say other than, “Sigh.”
The Pope in fact said that that the use of condoms increases the rate of AIDS infection. That statement is false on the face of it, and the Pope offered no evidence for his astonishing conclusion.
The reason why the Aids epidemic has been so prevalent in Africa has actually been due to a lack of condom distribution and availability of condoms across the continent. In addition to this, there have been cultural trends in which many men shunned using condoms because of the perception that having sex with a condom is a “manly” “authentic” experience.
In addition to this, much of former President Bush’s PEPFAR funds were designated for abstinence projects which have failed to change behaviour.
I think it important for people living in first world countries to have a greater understanding of the underlying issues before they start siding with a patently dangerous assertion.
Condoms, if used correctly, prevent Aids. And since people are not likely to abstain from sexual behaviour, policies, distribution and communications around HIV/Aids should all bear this in mind.
Thank you for visiting my blog, and for this post.
The question I keep asking is: if the critics think the pope’s conclusion is wrong, why do they not also criticize the other people, such as Dr. Green, who have reached the same conclusion, based on actual evidence–evidence that the pope is most certainly aware of, being the consummate scholar and thinker he is. He is not the kind of person that makes statements unsupported by evidence; I think he paid us all the compliment of assuming we were as well-informed on the issue as he was.
It is embarrassingly plain to see that the critics’ only real interest is bashing the pope and Catholic teaching, portraying them as backwards, archaic, and oppressive. The irony is astounding, really.
Catholic teaching regards man as perfectly capable of chastity–abstinence for the unmarried and fidelity for the married. Catholicism keeps the bar high. Catholicism believes we can achieve great things.
The secular West, on the other hand, sets the bar very low and tries to convince man that he’s too weak to live chastely. The secular West says, “Chastity is too hard and not any fun, so it’s not even worth trying.”
Now which thinks better and more highly of man? Which is truly civilized, and which is barbaric? Which is really backward and oppressive?
I prefer to live according to the worldview that regards me as a person of strength and dignity.
You are delusional sir. What the Pope is doing is alienating himself from the rest of the world with his archaic dogma against reproductive welfare and birth control. Why don’t you go read a book or two you moron.
This topic is quite hot in the net at the moment. What do you pay the most attention to while choosing what to write about?
Ex Boyfriend-Mostly I just write about something that catches my eye and I have something to say about. That often includes controversial issues, such as in this post. Since I started writing this blog I’ve written a wide variety of posts…usually on politics or public policy, sometimes on a news story of the day and sometimes on a pop culture fad. Whatever the topic, I keep my blog focused on its primary mission of spreading Common Sense in the world.
[...] Some people would argue that HuffPo does those four things generally. Others would not. [...]