transmothra | interesting tactic

Bono is sucking the toes of the pharmaceutical industry in a ploy to get them to develop an AIDS vaccine, while encouraging other so-called celebrity-activists to do likewise. oddly (horrifically, in fact), only Merck appears to be working on a potential vaccine, which Bono now says may be due to the anti-pharmaceutical-industry activism of himself and his peers. bold move. i hope it works. it seems awfully desperate, but these are desperate times.

some AIDS facts, courtesy of unaids.org:

42 million people (est.) are "living" with HIV/AIDS today.
- that's 2 million more than last year, or the population of the state of Nebraska.
women make up a full 50% of cases.
China is only just now starting to take measures, and estimates that by the end of the decade, they may have more than 10 million cases in their country alone.
5 million new infections (worldwide) annually now, and that number grows every year.
3.1 million people died as a result of AIDS in 2002.

ARM YOURSELVES, kiddos.

the November issue of CMJ (yes, i know it's December, but this mag is becoming increasingly erratic with its publishing dates) has an excellent sampler, the best they've put out in a long time. one caveat: there is one song so incredibly terrible, you'll be humming it for days. oy vey.