Thailand: HIV Spreads Among Young People

In Thailand, health officials are battling the growing spread of HIV among young people. Unfortunately, even though there has been a great deal of attempts to educate young people on HIV and safe sex many young people are too scared to go and purchase condoms.

In a poll taken by the Health Ministry indicated that 77 percent of teenagers in Thailand are not educated on how HIV is spread. According to the article, individuals who are infected with HIV used condoms only 50 percent of the time. That is a lot of unprotected sex.

I seriously cannot imagine not using a condom. I have no plans on getting pregnant or catching some kind of STD anytime soon. I also have no interest in getting HIV. It is kind of mind-boggling that half of all their sexual encounters were unprotected.

How do you educate people on an issue that has fallen by the wayside?

There is no cure for this disease. Now unless you feel comfortable beingcondom-free and having sex without thinking about what possible diseases you might be getting – chances are you’ll be popping a wide variety of pills for the rest of your life.

Seeing as how widespread this disease is in Thailand I don’t understand why people would be so afraid to purchase condoms when they could be saving their own life in the long run. Yes, purchasing a box of condoms isn’t the most glamorous moment in your life, but it sure as hell beats the alternative.

-- Eming Piansay

Less Than Enchanted

Growing up the old Walt Disney movies I’ve developed an annoyingly critical take on every Disney cartoon film to come out since then.

This past weekend I managed to go to a free screening of Walt Disney’s new movie Enchanted. Prior to the watching the movie I already knew it was a mix between fantasy and reality – which is what a lot of movies seem to be doing these (i.e. Beowulf).

The beginning of the movie was a hodgepodge between the opening of Sleeping Beauty, the friendly animals of Cinderella, and the wicked jealous Queen from Snow White. Normally, I wouldn’t be so turned off by those elements but even though the general ideas of those three stories were melded together on the screen, there was something obviously missing. Maybe it was absence of intricate artistic details that made it look more like a Saturday morning cartoon show you’d see at 8 am in the morning, or the light-airy believable voices that drew you into the story to begin with.

Though Enchanted made a good effort in giving an old fashion throwback to the Disney of old – it lacked those certain characteristics that made those Disney movies so entrancing. But I’m sure it filled that holiday longing for those needing a reason to sit in the movie theatre and be immersed in the sugarcoated pop melodies that only Disney can successfully get you to like. I suppose that’s the reason why High School Musical has been such a success.

-- Eming Piansay

Don't Kill Your Kids

With the holiday shopping season beginning, shoppers are feeling a little more than just the average holiday mall anxiety. The news of toxic toys shipped from China have many consumers scared that their next purchase might be lethal.

Even with all the news coverage over the toxic toys it was reported that many of the toys are still being advertised to the public. Okay, everyone, on the count of three swallow a piece of lead.

Even though the toys are no longer in stores this whole tainted toy craze picked the worse time of the year to make itself known. When I think back to all the Christmas’ when I was drooling over toy catalogs I can only imagine what it must be like to hear your parents’ say, “Sorry Timmy, no large-plastic-machine-gun this year. We wanted to get it for you, but chances are it might have killed you.” There’s no easy way to say that to a kid.

Also, many news outlets have reported the fear of contaminated toys is not restricted to new toys. Some parents have started to go through and throw out all toys that may also be contaminated.

It must be nerve-wracking as a parent to stand in the middle of a toy story debating for a good half an hour as to whether they should risk filling her kids’ stocking stuffers with gifts that could make the holiday season a lot less merry.

-- Eming Piansay

Obama Fesses Up

Just like Honest Abe (sort of), White House hopeful Barack Obama admitted he is no saint. When he was younger he dabbled in drugs and drinking. Wow… shocker.

I love how politicians make these blanket statements about themselves. It is almost like telling kids for the first time there is no Santa Clause.

Republican opponent Rudy Giuliani supported Obama’s choice to come forward with the news, while another Republican candidate Matt Romney believes Obama’s statements were a “huge error”.
It is like a classic chess game. One opponent makes a move and the other shakes their head saying, “What is this guy thinking?”

Obama’s moment of truth may be his attempt to reach out to a young voters in America who may feel comfortable with a man who admits his past blunders, compared to the ones that deny they exist all together. However, Obama’s statement makes it very, very obvious just who he wants to vote for him, the liberal – or at least those who are a little less conservative and feel comfortable talking about that one night they had a little too much whiskey.

I’ve noticed throughout the last few years that candidates, running for any form of office, create their own poster child image. They want to be YOUR candidate. They want to be your speaker box. They want to model themselves in the image of what they think you want. If you hate terrorism but don’t like the way the government is dealing with it – they want to be your poster boy/girl. If you think America is in danger of being destroyed by outside forces – they will strap as many red, white and blue flags on their sleeve as they can just to prove it.

I think it is great that Obama was honest with his past – uh – experiences. There should really be one debate set-aside sometime during the campaign trailer where all the candidates from either side come together and have one giant Public Service Announcement on drugs, alcohol and sex. You could probably learn a lot more from those guys than one session of Health Education in high school. Soon every statement would begin with, “Back in my day we smoked…” and so forth. That would make for an interesting Youtube debate.

-- Eming Piansay

How Do You Get to Shame Street?

Once I was introduced to the window to the world, a.k.a. television, it was impossible for anyone to keep me away. I hogged that screen like it was life support. Many of my fondness memories growing up were the characters that bounced on and off the screen. Between shows like Mysterious Cities of Gold and Sesame Street I gorged myself in all the shows my parents would let me watch during my pre-school age.

Now, apparently the old season of Sesame Street that my young life pretty much rotated around has been deemed as inappropriate for the today’s pre-school-ers. When I first read this story I went back to the beginning just to make sure I hadn’t read it wrong: Sesame Street – for adults only? Was there some weird puppet on puppet porn I didn’t pick up on?

According to the New York Times, the early seasons of Sesame Street “modeled bad behavior”, such as a skit of “Monsterpiece Theater” where Cookie Monster had a pipe – and then ate it. Right – bad behavior -- just wait till they’re old enough to watch MTV’s The Real World.

First of all, I don’t think anyone could literally swallow down a pipe, dirt maybe, but a whole pipe? Cookie Monster may not have been the best role model in the world – but I don’t think that was his intended purpose. Looking back at Sesame Street and a lot of the old kid shows I used to watch – the reason I liked them so much was they had a variation of characters. They weren’t saints, but they were the most well-rounded and entertaining thing on television at the time.

If you compare Sesame Street to a lot of the other shows airing today – you could probably say most of the shows today are sugarcoated and badass boring blandness.

According to TV.com the highest rated kids show of all time weren’t necessarily the most sanitary of the bunch. Sure, they weren’t targeted at pre-school generation but you’re still in that impressionable age range. The list includes shows such as: So Weird, Are You Afraid of the Dark, Salute Your Shorts, Legends of the Hidden Temple, Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street, Muppets Tonight and Ghostwriter. Considering so many of the shows that aired way back then weren’t as tidy and sanitized as the parental agenda might like – I personally believe a lot of these shows were the best kids shows – EVER, and it is a sad shame that those shows are no longer being aired today.

Even if a lot of these shows aren’t quiet PC most of us probably don’t notice till way later in life. My little naïve self will contest to that.

-- Eming Piansay

Things That Make You Go -- Ugh: The Holiday Blog

If there’s one thing I can not stand about this time of year is the fact that before I have made my rounds in wishing my relatives Happy Thanksgiving; before I have even gotten my plate full of mash potatoes and turkey breast and have gorged myself enough to be bloated for the next couple months, everywhere I turn I am hounded by Christmas.

Last weekend the Christmas tree in San Francisco Union Square was put up and the lights were starting to be hung. The outsides of many big stores had already setup their Christmas window displays. If the medical industry were as ahead of the game as most of these organizations, not to mention a lot more money hungry and materialistic, we’d probably would have cured cancer and every other disease that comes to mind ages ago.

I don’t understand the need to hurry the holidays – really—I see no reason to rush myself into debt with all the Christmas gifts I’m required to buy. Whatever ‘joy’ the Holidays once represented has been smeared and turned into a marketing ploy for every big company with a new toy to sell. The only thing that moves off the shelves on Thanksgiving is food. Until Best Buy starts stocking yams and cranberry sauce the marketing of Christmas on November 1st will be going strong for years to come.

Seriously though, why is everyone trying to speed up to Black Friday? I’ve already seen from a distance the insane mass of people that turn up on Black Friday and have no desire to get trampled by shoppers on a quest for whatever’s hot this year. I’ll most likely be fast asleep when the stampede breaks out at six in the morning – recovering from my food hangover. That --fellow Thanksgiving-ers – is what normal people do after Thanksgiving. I detest whoever made this after Turkey Day tradition, not to mention whoever decided to start putting out giant Christmas displays in early November. Disgusting…

-- Eming Piansay

If Barack were a Rock Star

I just got back from Barack Obama’s event at San Francisco Bill Graham Civic Auditorium and I just got to say, if Barack were a rock star there would be mosh pits for miles on end.

The crowd outside Bill Graham was crazy. I was waiting to get trampled by his eager fans as we moved towards the front doors. Before I had even realized this was the location where Barack was going to appear I thought the crowd stretching several blocks was for some kind of concert. Justin Timberlake, maybe? But no, all these people were showing up on a Wednesday night to see the one – the only – Barack Obama.

Once the scary security guys let us through we officially entered Obama Central. Before making his grand appearance several speakers and a choir appeared on stage. One girl, who I believe was a spokesperson for the Students for Obama, gave a speech that sounded more like she was practicing for her future America’s Next Top Model interview.

From an outside perspective, the speeches felt more like time fillers before a photographer behind us at the media platform said Obama’s vehicle entourage was spotted heading towards the building.

When Obama finally arrived, after being introduced by Alice Walker, the room went wild even before we made it on stage. “Hey!” “Hey!” “Hey!” “What’s up!” Obama said, making his way on to the stage.

Now, before I go any further, that it wasn’t until that exact moment that I realized how white the audience standing in front of the press area was. Here, we have a black male candidate running for the White House and – well – the question is kind of obvious. Granted, I’m sure not everyone wants to pay 30 bucks to get 45 minutes of him talking – which could be a reason – but I still had expected some kind of diversity in the audience. Not even just white or black, maybe a little bit of everything.

Anyway, back to the event. Barack affirmed his support of health care, education, ending the war in Iraq, climate change, poverty, HIV/AIDS and Darfur. However, several people we spoke to after the event said they were disappointed that he didn’t mention immigration and women’s right.

Even with those two topics missing the audience seemed to just be happy to have someone who they could rely on, or at least offering them something different than what they’ve seen since the 2000 election.

I don’t know if Barack is going to win the White House next year. But I do know if he plans on doing some kind of spoken, political poetry with events like this, he will not have an empty seat in the house.

When Writers Stop Writing

There’s one thing that gets taken for granted these days more than most, it is the written word. Whether we’re talking about books, newspapers, blogs, online news sites and any form of literary material you can think of.

This week the Writers Guild, responsible for most of the TV sitcoms, has decided to go on strike in lieu of salary issues.

Now, I’m glad to see writers taking a stand in regard to what they’re really worth but then I started to really think about what this strike really meant.

How essential are we, the writers, in the bigger scheme of things? If all the journalists in the world decided to go on a Nation Wide strike for more money – would anyone care? Besides the fact that no one would be reporting on it (since they’d all be on strike) would anyone care as much about that? Mainly since the news of the screenwriters striking seems to be the top story of discussion this week.

Do writers only matter if they’re feeding the Massive Television Franchise with Desperate Housewives scripts?

In the long run of things, the script crisis isn’t that big of a deal. Once the dispute is settled and everything is back to normal you’ll be able to catch the entire T.V. series, minus commercials and writers’ strike on DVD at your local movie rental store, or your favorite online DVD rental shipping company.

All writers (regardless of genre) should be apart of the Writers Guild, script writers, journalists, novel writers, and poets alike in a united front like war buddies, except the only difference instead of battle scars we’ll have paper cuts. That would be one interesting after protest party.

-- Eming Piansay

Good Old Fashion Pop

Not too long ago the ingredients for becoming a pop star was as easily as purchasing it from a Halloween store. Add in a couple sparkly bras, a dancing poll, a dozen or so dancers, and a vocal synthesizer and you’re good to go.

In the most materialistic way of thinking, some pop music is just meant to make you like it and sell albums, doesn’t matter if the vocals aren’t all that great – as long as there’s a decent music hook, the content doesn’t need much.

Last week Britney Spears’ latest album Black Out hit the street. I managed to hear a couple of the tracks prior to the release. Surprisingly to myself, and probably most of the critical music critics today – the songs weren’t that bad.

Everyone saw Britney’s live performance of “Gimme More” and the music video. I admit, I thought it was horrible. But, of course, after hearing a song for about hundred times its hard to completely hate it.

After I heard the other songs, like Freak Show, Toy Soldier, and “Piece of Me” my chair dancing began.

Piece of Me is probably my favorite so far. I guess this was her finger flip to the media and everyone else who has two words to say about her parenting and partying skills in the past year or two.

Granted, Brit hasn’t been in the best light with the judge taking away her two kids and her documented sporadic behavior – but when it comes to what she produces when she’s in the music studio – I think it is really hard to judge her.

You have to hand it to her though, as much as you may dislike her, she has an army of music producers that could turn a sick woman with a cough into dance floor diva.

This album just goes to show, even if your vocal skills are on the iffy side, and your personal life has become the dartboard for every comedian in the country, as long as you have money to pay you’re producers and handlers you’ll be rolling in dough by week’s end.

-- Eming Piansay