I've always found it absurd when money is spent to do a study that finds obvious things such as "Racism Still Exists." There's only one word I can respond with, a perfect word, that I haven't really used since I was 12: Duh! I know it's not mature or intelligent, but to me it's perfectly fitting.

I came across another "duh" moment this week when I saw this headline: "Women's rights key to Africa AIDS crisis: study." My fellow Democrats, liberals, feminists, and users of common sense and logic have known this for years. If a woman has the right to say no, to use her own protection or insist that her unfaithful husband use protection, to have control over the body that she lives in, she will be in better health. The study focused on the failings of African governments in regards to women, but I can't help but think of our own country's failings for women around the world.

Jennifer Leblanc

Seventeen years ago I woke my mom and aunt up with a problem: I wasn’t breathing normally. My mom worried because that’s what she did, and my aunt worried because she had one idea: asthma.

This was the beginning of what has been a wonderful life of wheezing, gasping, and taking steroids. And the best part is that I have to pay for inhalers — the devices that give medicine to asthmatics. I use this wonderful device because I need it to live.

So let me write this line and see if you’re as angry as I am: After insurance I get to pay $10-$30 a month to live. Not “live comfortably,” just “live.” And thanks to that wonderful, conservative idea of the “free market” (where corporate bailouts and subsidies are somehow allowed), there is a person out there making money off of me.

The idea of profiteering off of the illness of someone else is infuriating. I think of someone — a stock owner! — sitting on his ass collecting dividends or (even better) waiting until that hugely profitable moment when a bigger corporation buys his stock for an assload of money. Making this nightmare even better is the fact that if I don’t find affordable insurance in the next few years (I can stay on my dad’s until I’m 25), my inhaler cost will eat away my bank account quicker than a cake in Oprah’s greenroom.

My government does not care about this and continues to defeat any attempt to help everyone afford the cost of medical care. I am pretty sure I know why: Those people collecting dividends and making money off of my sickness, well, some of them are running for Congress. And, oh, it makes me feel great to know that.

When I was five I was told I could grow out of asthma, that it would improve with age, but it never has. I have a thousand triggers that can set off the panting/gasping sweat-storm that is a normal asthma attack for me. Luckily I only have one of these every couple of days, so I’m doing wonderful.

And when I lose my insurance and have to pay out the ass to live, it’ll warm my heart that I will be helping this generation of pharmaceutical stockholders buy BMWs, which is going to be a real comfort when my O₂ stats drop.

Patrick Duganz

Two young gay men hide their sexuality in order to keep their government jobs and their reputations. Thomas Mallon set such a premise in 1950s D.C., but virtually nothing has changed since then.
Take this news bit worthy of celebration, for example: "…the Department of Defense no longer classifies homosexuality as a mental disorder." You'd think this action would've been taken back in the '70s when mental health professionals came to this conclusion. Sadly, this was reported less than a year ago.

In Mallon's novel, the earnest young government employees (gay and straight) believe in fighting the evils of communism. But there's still time to weed out the lavender along with the red. Just as now, while the entire world recognizes the growing danger of Al-Qaeda, our top officials will even torture innocent civilians all over the world to stop the enemy. But a gay co-worker? Our government just can't tolerate that. In fact (and this also happened just last year), the Pentagon fired seven Arabic translators for being gay. MSN reports, "Between 1998 and 2004, the military discharged 20 Arabic and six Farsi speakers." Brilliant move in the fight on terror.

Mallon's novel focuses only on government employees leading double lives. Our government isn't happy with just targeting their own. From 2005: "Pentagon anti-terror investigators labeled gay law school groups a 'credible threat' of terrorism." Even outside of D.C. and the military, Uncle Sam equates gays with actual terrorists who fly planes into sky scrapers.

Historical novels typically move me to think, "imagine living through this or that back then." Sadly, pathetically, unnecessarily, gay people are still living this. And for what?

Jennifer Leblanc

I came across the latest atrocity in systematic violence against women on CNN’s Headline News today and investigated further to get a clearer picture through the Ms. Magazine feminist wire.

I’m not sure how this kind of thing happens today. I’m not sure how anyone can view it as entertainment and tape the footage on their cell phones and sell it to a major American news network or other location. Furthermore, I don’t understand how anyone can watch someone’s life being taken without helping.

The news wire article estimates that up to 1,000 men could have participated in ending this 17-year-old woman’s life. That means that there were up to 2,000 hands that could have helped her up instead of pushing her down or that could have blocked her from the countless stones that smashed her body, ultimately and publicly murdering her. News reports say that this is culturally called an “honor killing,” but where is the honor in ending a woman’s life while she is unable to defend herself? I’m nothing less than disgusted.

Cultural norms or otherwise, there are some things that I will never understand, and killing because of love is one of those things. I suppose I’m lucky. No, not lucky. Fortunate. I am fortunate because, in America, it is a crime to murder someone for choosing to love outside of his or her religion. Even twenty minutes later, this story still leaves a terrible taste in my mouth. It is evident that this story is too close to home for me to stomach. I’m in a relationship that spans religious diversity, and daily I do not hide my head or fear for some kind of repercussion. There are people who, of course, find my situation distasteful — and each person is allowed his or her opinion. But I’ve never had to fear for my life like this woman must have. So, as I reflect on my own life and the life of this woman, only one year younger than me, I realize that, no, I am not lucky. She was deprived of the life she should have been allowed to have and love she should have been allowed to express.

It is hard enough to find love, and those who are able to find it are fortunate and should be able to celebrate it rather than wondering if the next day is the day that they will lose their lives because of it. I can only hope that there will come a day when love of all kinds is embraced.

Juana Maria Summers