Bono praises Pence and presumably not for a bet

No Rock And Roll Fun isn't - you might have noticed - as busy as it has been traditionally, mainly because who the hell has the energy to write about an ecosystem that has somehow evolved Rag N Bone Man and everyone takes him seriously?

But the blog remains open, and from time to time I'll be posting here when there's something that warrants it. And something that warrants it is... well, this:

Enjoyed chatting w/ Bono at @MunSecConf. Discussed prior effort to twice pass Africa AIDS assistance & future security in developing nations pic.twitter.com/LJcvF4mXid

— Vice President Pence (@VP) February 18, 2017

Yes, that's long-time friend of the unpleasant Bono shaking warmly the hand of Mike Pence, enabler-in-chief to Donald Trump. This was during a meeting yesterday in Munich.

Bono also took the chance to praise Pence. He lauded Pence for "hitting the ground running", which is a bit like applauding bird flu for being especially virulent. Then tried to find a reason for touching the man that would play well to the liberal audience Bono believes still values him:

According to a pool report, the two men shared an exchange about the 2003 passage of the President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief and its 2008 renewal, which Pence advocated for as an Indiana congressman.

"Twice on the House floor you defended that. That’s how we know you," Bono, who has been a vocal proponent of the fight against AIDS, told Pence.

"And we really appreciate it," he added.

It's true, Pence DID support the Emergency Plan back in 2008. However, this was the same Pence who - in 2000 - tried to derail the Ryan White Care Act:

“Congress should support the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act only after completion of an audit to ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus,” read an LGBT section of Pence’s website, called Strengthening the American Family.

So had he changed his mind since then, and is he helping the fight against AIDS?

Well, no. He's making it worse, and singlehandedly helped create an HIV crisis in Indiana:

Pence first laid the groundwork for Indiana’s HIV outbreak as a congressman back in 2011, when the House passed his amendment to defund Planned Parenthood. Then in 2013, Pence’s first year as governor of Indiana, Scott County’s one Planned Parenthood closed in the wake of public health spending cuts. Since that particular Planned Parenthood was also the county’s only HIV testing center, there was no longer a place for the county’s 24,000 residents to get tested.

Nearly 20 percent of Scott County residents live below the poverty line. Injection drug use there is a major problem, increasing the risk of HIV outbreak.

Fast-forward to 2015. Local health officials began to report HIV cases linked to intravenous prescription opioid use in Scott County. Scott County residents were sharing needles to inject their opioids, and nobody was getting tested.

The situation quickly spiraled out of control. At the height of the outbreak, 20 new cases of HIV were being diagnosed each week, reaching a total of nearly 200 cases by the time the outbreak was finally under control.

Maybe if Bono had a spine, or perhaps didn't need to be loved so much, he might have mentioned this.

Maybe if Bono had a spine, he'd have drawn the link between the defunding of sexual health providers in Indiana, and the Trump-Pence White House's first executive order. That's the one which pulls funding from any organisation working overseas which mentions abortions as an option.

The executive order was restoring an older, Bush-era rule. And how did that work out?

Implementation of the global gag rule went well beyond abortion to effectively limit all discussions of family planning, including condom use to prevent HIV infection and multiyear spacing of pregnancies to avoid maternal deaths. Organizations as diverse as the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund and Family Health International lost millions of dollars in support from the US government during the years the gag rule was enforced.

Bono - who is such a useful idiot he's more the Swiss Army Knife of Idiots - is shaking the hand of a man who has created an HIV crisis in his home state, and is part of a White House that's making rules that will stop condom use and education overseas, and praising him as a great warrior in the fight against HIV.

After this meeting, Bono moved on to take a selfie with Famine, noting that the famous Horseman had really "cut through and found a way to persuade people to eat up their leftovers."

Wogan's worst fears realised: Eurovision is the cosa nostra

Oh, that's all we need: As if Terry Wogan wasn't paranoid enough without Ani Lorak, this year's Ukranian entrant into Eurovision, cheerfully admitting that the votes are based on fraternal ties rather than quality of music:

As the interview progressed, talk fell on the subject of the infamous voting system and how countries tended to vote for their neighbours. Her reply was short and sweet: "How can you not vote for family?"

Of course, it's not all bad - after all, without the family votes from Ireland, Britain would normally be looking at a final score somewhere between nul and the minuses.

Lorak is Ukraine's answer to Geri Halliwell, having had a role as UN ambassador for HIV AIDS:

"Having previously been unaware of the problem of HIV and AIDS in the Ukraine I took on the task with honour. After all, if a person with HIV smiles at you, there is no reason to fire them from their job... Serving as an ambassador has taught me so much," she said.

I might be slightly alarmist, but if you're choosing someone to be ambassador for HIV awareness, wouldn't it be better to start with someone who already knows that Aids doesn't get spread by smiling, or is a justifiable reason for firing someone?

Michael pulls HIV interview

We wonder what George Michael had to tell Stephen Fry about his attitude towards HIV and AIDs? We can have a hint, as the producer of Fry's programme on the subject, tells us:

"George says he does not believe in tests," said producer Ross Wilson.

"He says he finds the wait for results too harrowing and that he hasn't had a test since at least 2004 due to his fears it might be positive."

However, we can't know for sure, as he's now decided that he doesn't want the programme to be shown. Presumably he fears that taking his HIV status on - arf - Faith might make him look a little wreckless, or selfish. Or weak.

Still, there's good news from the BBC News report:

Michael is still set to appear in this year's festive edition of Catherine Tate's BBC comedy programme.

Well, that's alright, then.

Elton: My silence wasn't golden

Elton John has decided he's going to be a bit more vocal about the whole gay thing from now on:

"I have to speak my mind because as a gay man now I have a responsibility to. I sat back too long. I mean when (AIDS charity) Act Up were going in and trying to change the face of AIDS awareness in America because nobody else was doing it, I sat back and did nothing.

"I don't know why I didn't do anything. I just look back and question myself. Well why didn't you do something more positive then?"

We wonder, too, Elton. Could it be because back then it still involved making a stand and risking your neck, whereas now it's not career-damaging?

A lot of good work for charidee

Let's just preempt the comments box and say: Yes, we know Annie Lennox's Band Aid style single is in a good cause and, yes, it will raise a bit of money.

However, wouldn't it be better all round if Shakira, Joss Stone, Dido, Celine Dion, Pink, Fergie, Gladys Knight, Bonnie Raitt, Melissa Etheridge, KT Tunstall and Madonna all released a proper single - one that they might have released anyway - and gave the money from that to Nelson Mandela's 46664 Aids charity instead? Wouldn't that raise more money and, indeed, mean that the artists involved could feel a sense of actually contributing to the cause by redirecting some of their royalties, rather than just spending an hour or so making a record that nobody would really want for its own merits?

Have MTV thought this through?

Now, we're all for a spot of public health campaigning, and awareness raising is always a good thing, but MTV America's plans for HIV testing day sounds like an idea that has the potential to go terribly awry:

MTV News is seeking young couples willing to get an HIV test — on camera — for National HIV Testing Day. The couple will talk to MTV News about why they think getting tested for HIV is important, and then take our audience through the actual process of getting tested, showing how difficult or simple it is. Potential candidates should be in the New York Tri-State area and available before the afternoon of June 22.

Are they sure they want to run the risk of someone discovering they're HIV positive with five minutes to go before Pimp My Shoebag? Is that really the sort of life-changing event you want to risk in the name of light entertainment?

Bono praises Bush. Again.

Bono has lavished praise on George Bush for the promised $30 billion spend supposedly to fight AIDS in Africa. Bono acknowledges that this won't be to everyone's taste:

"Some of my activist friends will be jumping on one leg rather than jumping on two because it's never enough.

"But I'm standing up and I'm applauding the president and congress."

However, even Bono admits that one third of this money has got to be spent on abstinence campaigns - which, effectively, means ten million dollars wasted; indeed, pushing abstinence is worse than not doing anything.

In America, the studies done into kids who pledge themselves to abstinence suggests that their sexual activity doesn't differ noticeably from kids who don't; it's just as they're unprepared, they tend to get pregnant more frequently. Somehow, spending ten million dollars replicating that failed experiment in nations with frightening rates of HIV infection doesn't seem to be too great an idea.

Oh, and this is thirty billion not a one-off payment, it's to be spread over five years. And it looks a little paltry next to the European Commission's pledge of an extra $537 million to the Global Fund over the same period.

The money will be going through the President's Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief coffers. Part of their demand before releasing funds is that organisations who draw down funding "have a policy "explicitly opposing" prostitution and sex trafficking". This, of course, causes problems for organsiations who are working with sex workers to spread safer sex messages, provide tests for sex workers and support those who are HIV+ to provide an alternative means of support.

As an example, in 2005, Brazil had no choice but to refuse $40m US grant because of the clause; the highly respected DKT International group lost its funding. [Source: Planned Parenthood.

Oddly, though, while health workers were being told to have nothing to do with sex workers by PEFAR, Randall L Tobias [Bush's ambassador for PEFAR, before becoming deputy Secretary of State] was busily having lots and lots to do with them. Tobias resigned at the end of April after it emerged that he didn't have a personal policy opposing prostitution:

Tobias told ABC News he had several times called the "Pamela Martin and Associates" escort service "to have gals come over to the condo to give me a massage."

Tobias, who is married, said there had been "no sex," and that recently he had been using another service "with Central Americans" to provide massages.

Presumably Tobias was merely teaching the women the joys of abstinence. Or maybe he's a liar. We don't know. We do know, though, that the man is a hypocrite.

So Bush is offering a smidge of money, designed less to help solve a problem as embark on an act of social engineering - all the while, entrusting the funds into the hands of men who can't keep them off sex workers. And Bono wonders why people who actually work in AIDS HIV prevention (rather than, say, the music industry, or the construction industry, or as a venture capitalist on Wall Street) find it hard to get to their feet to cheer.

By the way, the war in Iraq is currently costing $4.5 billion dollars a month. (That, by the way, is if you don't count the cost of weapons and equipment.) Oddly, there's been no attempt to insist the Iraqi people sign a pledge of abstinence before they receive this, uh, assistance.

Rock sick list: Butler and Platter

Get well soons to Win Butler, recovering from surgery designed to sort out his sinus problems prior to the Arcade Fire's US tour:

"Just wanted to let you all know that the surgery was successful, and I am recovering nicely. I will probably start singing again this week some time to try and get ready for the shows in North America. "It has been a blessing in disguise to be forced to stay at home and read, and sleep and I have even started work on some new songs."

And all the best to Curtis Bridgeforth. He's been HIV+ for 17 years, and is stepping down from The Platters as he's developed diabetes (apparently a cruel side effect of his HIV mdeication). He's released a statement:

"I found out in 1990 that I was HIV positive and I've been living with HIV for the last 17 years.

"Then two years ago, after suddenly losing 20 pounds and 30 percent of my eyesight, I learned that I had diabetes, in all probability stemming from my HIV medication.

"Right now, my sugar count and cholesterol count are dangerously high, so to prevent a major heart attack or stroke, as well as deal with the HIV issue, I need to seek treatment in New York. There is a program offered there for people like me who don't have health insurance.

"Ninety-nine per cent of the people I work with every night knew nothing of my HIV until now, although our management company has been aware since 2003. I don't want to hide it anymore - I'm an example of how to survive it and maybe I can help other people in the same situation.

"After I get my health in check, I want to come back to performing. I've already been offered some opportunities. The most important thing I do on this planet is sing to people - I can make people smile and that's a God-given gift."

Foo, it's getting hot in here

Goodness from the Foo Fighters, taking time off from suggesting that HIV and Aids have nothing to do with each other, as they drop fireworks from Aussie shows and give savings to firefighters.