"I Shall Be Saved!"

Hi, my name is Ian and I am not a religious nut job! I'm happy, healthy (swine flu free!) and perfectly content to go to Hell if people like the good folk of the Stephen Bennett Ministries are going to be in Heaven. Today I went to the Equality Forum in Philadelphia. The highlight was obviously getting to see Gavin Newsom talk. He's the STRAIGHT gay friendly Mayor of San Francisco that started the avalanche in 2004. His speech was inspirational and he's my new hero. He supports the "everyone knows one" practice. So as I've mentioned before, every one of you reading this knows a gay person. There are more pressing issues in 2009. Our economy is in tatters, the wars are going on longer than any war in American history and yet we try to control the natural force of love?

People outside were definitely defenders of "marriage." I'm not going to take any more time talking about them (it's just a waste of space) but I have to mention that a good interview with me will be available on www.citypaper.net some time this week. READ!!!


PS. I thought today that if I were a newcomer to this country (some may say I am!) I would think that Americans are some of the most hate filled people in the world. Is that what it means to be a Christian?

Happiness is infectious…

So I had the weirdest night last night. I went home and finally found the missing disc of 90210 that I had watched a couple of months back. I had a mind numbing day of sorting out depressing statistics from the last year of AIDS work. My job was to take 12 months of monthly reports on the HIV/AIDS awareness statistics and try and sort them into age brackets for 42 elementary schools and 17 associations. By the end of the day yesterday, when I closed my eyes, I saw an excel spreadsheet. Needless to say I was tired. So, when in Africa, I went home to escapist DVDs. I couldn’t move off of my couch. I fell asleep with my door wide open (not a good idea) and my dog very confused (which she is most of the time.) I struggle up to try and take a bath. Summer has finally come during the days, but at night it still gets down in the low 60’s (which is cold when you live in a concrete shack!) I’ll stop the parenthetical comments – my English teachers would hate me. But after the mind fluff of 90210 I wanted to watch another movie. My friend Shaun just gave me an 8 in 1 of Denzel Washington Movies. I watched this movie called John Q. Oh my God is all I have to say, well not really because if I did, the blog entry would be over here.

The movie is about this working class family in the age of high gas prices and wonky mortgages (now, {oh damn it!}) The son of the family has a heart defect that puts him into heart failure. He needs a new heart. The father says that’s fine, he has insurance. But he only works about 25-30 hours so he only qualified for tier 2 catastrophic insurance ie up to 20,000 dollars. Even writing about this now is making my blood boil. The guy starts selling of his house, he tries everything and this is where the movie gets interesting. He takes the heart surgeon and some people in the Emergency Room hostage. He doesn’t want to kill anyone, just wants a new heart for his son. Is that too much to ask? The majority of the movie takes place within the Emergency Room so it’s not packed with action, but all the while I couldn’t help cheering this guy on. He wasn’t taking no for an answer from the monolithic, money-hunger bureaucracy that is the American Health Care System. Truth be told, it wasn’t that well made of a movie, but it got me thinking. Who is in the wrong here? Any thoughts?

PS. My dog jumped onto the couch with me to hang out and then she suddenly decided that on top of the couch would be a more comfortable spot. Kinda like a cat. I've not laughed so hard in a really long time and I think that is what put me in such a good mood.

Are you Jon?

So I have taken roughly 135 pills of Larium. (I will admit I've maybe missed a couple here and there) and I have 21 left to do. That's okay, because I haven't been hit too hard with the side effects of it. Malaria is bad enough while taking the pills, I couldn't imagine what it would be like if I didn't take the pills. It's surprising how many PCVs around here don't though. Basically everyone who hears that we are supposed to take it for our entire time here flip out and call us every name in the book to insult our intelligence. It basically makes people crazy and is only 90 % effective. As many of you know I've got malaria multiple times and still take the pills. But dreams like last night make it totally worth it.
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My friend Anne's brother Jon was back for a visit from the States. However, he was visiting us all in Homoine, not Maxixe. He was back though looking for recruits for the ultimate battle against the Galactic Empire! He was desperate for us to join up with him because "we were strong in the ways..." What ways I don't know! That's all he would say. I agreed with him, as well as most of my friends. Then we went into the back room of one of the Indian run shops here. We were brought into a secret room of a secret room of "one of ours." This Indian guy was a trusted member of the Rebellion and transported new recruits to and from the Space Stations for training. Just as I was about to step into my transport, I started YELLING at Anne asking why she didn't tell me her brother was Luke Skywalker.

I woke up mad... weird.

Obrigado por Noel

So the mail system is working again. I've finally figured out how to make sure to get things through. First of all, make it look like a bomb. (Sorry Noel that was close to PEACE CORPS GHETTO what you did with the envelope) Second scribble religious messages all over the package. Third, tape it up like you were chucking it in the ocean for it to get to me. Fourth, put a REALLY awesome DVD in that will keep me up until 1:30 and make me look like a vampire when I come to work the next day. Weeds rocks! Thank you and good night...

oh yeah

I like LOST and ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT as well.