Campaign 2008, AIDS IN AFRICA

When Africa has been removed from every campaign speech and the statistics that were favored in front of the cameras, and a few million more have died while a few thousand more have been fed and transported to applaud and pat ballons around the room at two major party conventions maybe a new photo-op will arise and a new round of commercials with squinting eye celebs, ministers, and politicans will grace our televisions. When?
The numbers roll off the tongue like the bodies reduce to dust into the ground. It's easy to write that sentence and hit the space bar and go on but the horror in which it fills me with, the same strangeness that escaped the American media recently when the nation of Rwanda did away with the DEATH PENALTY and it got no mention even in any of the so-called LIBERAL blogs who care oh so much with their advertising rates in place next to their hearts and souls. The bodies aren't placed in the ground along party lines.

- Chris Mansel