This is worth applause today -- and is undoubtedly the result of pressure from advocates (including the ACLU but also a myriad of HIV-positive advocacy organizations):

In a written opinion dismissing a charge of bio-terrorism against a 45-year-old HIV-positive man, Macomb County Circuit Court Judge Peter Maceroni ruled that the mere fact a person is HIV-positive is not enough to accuse him or her of unlawfully possessing a harmful biological substance.

The eight page ruling, released Thursday morning, concludes that HIV is not transmitted by saliva without there being blood present. Prosecutors and preliminary hearing testimony did not indicate Daniel Allen was bleeding at the time he allegedly bit the victim, Winfred Fernandis, Jr.

Hallelujah!

It's actually a serious question, and one I found myself pondering last night on the dancefloor at Menjo's in Detroit. I was surrounded by a sea of women - I almost thought perhaps Maxime and I had made the mistake of coming on ladies not. But no, this was not ladies night. It was a run-of-the-mill twinkfest "College Night" at Menjo's, yet at least 1/3 of the attendees were of the female variety.

Let me clarify a bit: These weren't just any version of the straight girl. They're not even classifiable as "fag hags." These women were more like sorority girls than they were fagalicious hipsters. These are the kind of girls who bop up and down on the dance floor enthusiastically with their long hair swishing from side to side, making ridiculous attempts to rub their asses against gay men's crotches while grinning "mischievously" from ear to ear. They're dressed in their finest Forever 21 and Wet Seal garbs, with some generic hoop earrings to boot. You'll find them stocked in gay bars across the country. The come in packs, typically with at least one gay friend in tow -- but on occasion they arrive sans-homo.

So with that specification in mind, I have to ask: Why are they here? And I mean that question quite seriously. The obvious answer is that they came to party with their gay friends, but that seems like a curious answer: We don't generally show up in packs to straight clubs to party with our straight friends. And even when we do, we certainly don't comprise nearly a third of the crowd. No, something more systemic is happening here, something more interesting.

"Straight men are to me what tribal communities along the Amazon must have been to 19th century riverboat Anthropologists. They fascinate me, but I have no interest in getting off this boat to find out more."

I'd imagine being a straight girl has its ups and downs. You get access to dumb straight dick, but then again that dick is attached to a less appealing person. Straight men are to me what tribal communities along the Amazon must have been to 19th century riverboat Anthropologists. They fascinate me, but I have no interest in getting off this boat to find out more. Straight women don't have the luxury of tourism as I do, it seems. They have to find some way to get along with and, god forbid!, cohabitate with these people. If you've ever seen an average straight boy's college dorm room, you'll understand why this could be challenging: Empty Doritos bags strewn across the floor, half-empty PBR cans laying on top of desks, the smell of manscent and stale beer filling the air, a knee-high stack of Playstation 2 games beside the TV.

I'm always amazed when I go to straight clubs on campus here at UM and see how highly sexualized these spaces are. On any given Thursday night, Rick's here on campus will be slammed with 19 year olds with fake IDs, gyrating against each other frantically while sloppily making out against the wall. There is a certain desperation in their efforts, which is likely not unrelated to the fact that they have to get blackout-drunk to be able to explore their sexual desires. Growing up in Michigan doesn't exactly prepare you to feel good about your bodies or your desires, it seems. Getting wasted may be one strategy for managing that shame.

Which leads me back to my initial question: Why are a certain number of these girls MIA from Rick's on Thursday, instead opting to make the trek to College Night at Menjo's? I think the answer has to do with them searching for a place to have fun without the looming gaze of straight men. I know that's a simplistic account, but I think they're faced with a certain amount of pressure at straight bars to smile and flirt and be generally accessible to straight men. I don't mean this to say that straight men are bad people, but rather than straight girls may just want to party without them sometimes. To have fun, without the weight of hetero-sexual tension. So instead of heading to Rick's, they come to Menjo's.

I don't know what to say about their presence. Personally, I find them pretty annoying -- to be perfectly frank. They are not socialized as gay, and thus utterly clueless about gay culture except for what they learned watching Will & Grace. They are the ultimate cockblock, jerking their friends away from potential tricks to scurry to the dance floor -- and keeping those tricks at a distance by pseudo-humping to the music. They are here to party, not get laid, and thus get pissed if their gay friend ditches them for a make-out session. And the worst of them have the temerity to walk into a gay bar and judge its patrons and the establishment itself.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not against letting straight women into gay bars. But the straight women I like to see at gay bars have a sense of what it means to be queer. They may not be gay themselves, but they have their own sense of faggotry within. These women may be referred to as "fag hags" or "fruit flies." They appreciate what makes gay culture gay, and don't just come in from time to time to release some steam. In my book, these women are more than welcome at gay bars. So while I certainly understand what makes the girls I've described in this piece show up at Menjo's -- and I have a lot of compassion for the crap they have to put up with in their homeland -- I'm begging you, ladies, please don't turn your problem of straight men into our problem of putting up with your drunk asses. You may be having a blast, but most of the gay boys around you are secretly wishing you would leave.

If you live in Michigan, please ask your representative to vote no if and when HB 4583 comes to a vote in the House. From the MM:

Under the proposed changes, a patient will sign a general medical consent which includes permission to test for HIV. If a physician decides to run an HIV test, they will have to get verbal consent before ordering the test and note it in the file. However, a patient is not allowed to verbally decline an HIV test. Patients who do not wish to be tested will be required to put that in writing.

[...]

Mark Peterson, a spokesman for Michigan Positive Action Coalition (MI Poz), a group of HIV-positive people and their supporters in Michigan, said the legislation was not needed.

"I think the problem with this legislation is that it is an answer seeking a problem," he said, noting that hospitals and other medical groups in Southeast Michigan have been complying with the current law, which requires anyone ordering an HIV test to provide a patient with pre-and post-test counseling, as well as sign a specific document on the issue created by the Michigan Department of Community Health.

"It does concern me that we are eliminating that requirement," said Byrum.

The bills sponsor is Representative Roy Schmidt (a democrat from Grand Rapids), to whom I just wrote this note:

Representative Schmidt,

I'm writing in regards to HB 4583, requesting that you withdraw it from consideration. As a sociologist who studies HIV/AIDS for a living, I can say that this law is unnecessary and will do more harm than good. HIV testing is a very sensitive practice that requires a great deal of trust between doctors and their patients. Consent for HIV testing is essential for that trust to be possible. As you are surely well aware, many new infections in Michigan are among African American men who have sex with men - a population that already holds a relatively high level of distrust for medical providers due to experiences of prejudice and mistreatment. Thus, this legislation will damage what is already a fragile relationship between these men and their providers, which would *lower* HIV testing rates due to men avoiding medical attention altogether.

If passed, this bill will have dire, unintended consequences. Please, I ask sincerely that you reconsider this unnecessary and wrongheaded legislation.

Regards,
Trevor Hoppe
University of Michigan

So polite of me! I'm even shocked.

Michigan journalist and HIV-positive activist Todd Heywood has an outrageous and upsetting story posted on his site detailing the kinds of struggles he faced recently when trying to get access to post-exposure prophylaxis treatment for a sexual abuse victim:

I accompanied a 2[0-something] who had been the victim of a sexual assault to the hospital on Nov. 21. His experience, and mine with the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Justine, was more than acceptable. However, the victim requested a prescription for post exposure prophylaxis- which is a combination of antiretroviral medications taken over a 28 day time period to prevent infection with HIV. Because this was a stranger sexual assault, the HIV status of the assailant was unknown.

This victim and I spent four hours in the E.R. to receive a prescription which should have taken no more than an hour. Sadly, the E. R. Dept. Supervising doctor was unwilling to prescribe the medications, as is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for NonOccupational Post Exposure Prophylaxis (nPEP). In fact, this doctor, a Dr. Moreno was rude, uninformed, and provided several falsehoods to the victim in denying him access to necessary medications.

The CDC has a 24 hour hotline for doctors / clinicians to call if they are unsure of what drugs are appropriate to prescribe in a given situation. The issue of time is signficant here: The drugs are more effective the sooner you start them, and after 72 hours that effectiveness drops dramatically. So getting access quickly is key -- and ease of acesss is also key. This patient had an advocate there for him willing to fight for him, which seems largely to be the reason he ended up getting access -- FINALLY:

Dr. Moreno left the patient to talk with the Risk Management person, a Mr. Cole. And also provided a tablet with CDC guidelines of PEP in occupational exposure situations- which was not the case in a sexual assault, as you can imagine. Right there in paragraph two of the occupational exposure guidelines by the CDC was an 800 number staffed by CDC experts on PEP. Did your doctor find this number and call it?

No, that was left to me. The doctor from the CDC, upon presentation of the clinical facts- 22-year-old, unprotected, nonconsensual same sex activity in a high prevalency area (defined as have a 1% or higher incidence, which Ingham county has)- nPEP was indicated as an immediate treatment.

Dr. Moreno was given the name and telephone number of this CDC expert, and within minutes, the story changed.

The sad truth here is that doctors are grossly ignorant about these issues, and instead of owning up to their own ignorance, they tend to veil their ignorance under the guise of medical authority -- reacting not helpfully, but angrily. "How dare you challenge my authority! I know what's best." But they don't. And instead of getting the information they need, they deny care to patients. It's disgusting.

I recently had an experience VERY similar to this one. Incidentally, Todd recently interviewed me for an upcoming story on the matter. Look for more on that soon!

Sorry for the long citation, but I think in this case the details are so maddening and violently upsetting that it's worth knowing the details. Michigan is charging an HIV-positive man under terrorism charges ("use of a harmful device") for biting another man during an argument between neighbors:

An HIV-positive Macomb County man is facing charges created under Michigan's 2004 terrorism laws for biting another man in a neighborhood scuffle. That, HIV advocates, state lawmakers and legal experts say is "cowardly" and "nonsense" and increases ignorance and stigma surrounding the virus.

[snip]

The case arose out of an Oct. 18 fight between 44-year-old Daniel Allen and his neighbor Winfred Fernandis Jr. What happened that day is disputed.

According to a report from Clinton Township Police Department, Fernandis said Allen jumped him without provocation when he went to retrieve a football neighborhood kids accidentally threw onto Allen's yard. Fernandis, according to the police report, said Allen "hugged up" to him and began to bite him. Fernandis suffered a bite wound on the lip so severe, police say, it went all the way through the lip. Fernandis sought medical treatment and the wound was sewn shut.

The story, a man severely biting another man, drew the attention of the Detroit-area media, and Fox 2 News soon had Allen on video admitting he was HIV-positive.

That admission lead Smith, a Democrat, to say he would seek additional charges. On Nov. 2, Smith's office amended its complaint to add a charge of possession or use of a harmful device. That law is a 25-year felony and was part of a 2004 package of terrorism laws created by the legislature in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The law makes it a crime to have a harmful device, which is defined as either biological, chemical, electronic or radioactive. Smith's office is arguing that Allen being infected with HIV was "a device designed or intended to release a harmful biological substance," and that his bite was thus an attempt to spread HIV.

Smith's office is relying on a Michigan Court of Appeals ruling in a case of an HIV-positive, and hepatitis B infected prisoner who spit at prison guards during an altercation in the prison. In that case, People v. Antoine Deshaw Odom, the three judge panel found:

We therefore conclude that HIV infected blood is a 'harmful biological substance,' as defined by Michigan statute, because it is a substance produced by a human organism that contains a virus that can spread or cause disease in humans.

The three judge panel was silent on whether the hepatitis infection weighed in as a factor as a harmful biological substance. As a result of this finding, the court upheld a stricter sentencing score for Odom. In 2008, the Michigan Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal on the matter, upholding the Appeals Court decision.

As someone said to me about this case, if this is upheld, it's open season against HIV-positive people in Michigan -- and elsewhere. Read the rest of the VERY upsetting story here.

Here's the full press release out of Michigan!:

For Immediate Release:

November 3rd, 2009

ONE KALAMAZOO DECLARES VICTORY IN BALLOT FIGHT
Kalamazoo residents approve nondiscrimination ordinance

"Our campaign started with a very basic idea, and today voters confirmed that we are One Kalamazoo," said Campaign Manager, Jon Hoadley.

With only absentee ballots outstanding, 65 percent of Kalamazoo voters have approved Ordinance 1856 by a vote of 6,463 to 3,527, adding protections for gay and transgender people to the city's nondiscrimination ordinance. This margin is larger than the number of outstanding absentee ballots that are currently being counted.

"I am elated with the outcome of the election," says Yes on Ordinance 1856/One Kalamazoo Steering Committee member and local resident Janice Brown. "This vote reinforces what our campaign set out to prove - that our fellow residents of Kalamazoo share the belief that all people should be treated fairly and equally, including gay and transgender people."

The outcome of today's vote confirmed that all hardworking people in Kalamazoo should have the chance to earn a living and provide for themselves and their families without fear of being fired for reasons that have nothing to do with their job performance.

"Kalamazoo is a great place to live and the passage of Ordinance 1856 makes the city an even better place," says local resident Rev. Matt Laney, Pastor of the First Congregational Church. "I am proud to live in a city that recognizes that all people deserve fairness and respect."

The Yes on 1856/ One Kalamazoo campaign in support of the nondiscrimination ordinance involved hundreds of local volunteers and contributors, and had the endorsement of over 30 local religious, social, business, and political organization. The campaign would like to thank the Kalamazoo community for asserting their belief in the inherent equality of all Kalamazoo residents, and the countless volunteers for their hard work and dedication in recent months - and in some case, years - to ensure the passage of the ordinance.

Congrats to everyone over at One Kalamazoo!

Just shameful - and proving that Byzantine notions of HIV transmission are still alive and well in the good old United States:

A policy that bars HIV-positive inmates in Michigan prisons from working in food service jobs does not violate state law, according to the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. But though the policy may be legal, one leader in the Michigan Department of Corrections says he wants to change it.

The policy came under scrutiny in April when Michigan Messenger reported Michigan Department of Corrections official Russ Marlan stating the policy was in place to prevent the spread of the infection.

"A prison holds about 1,000, 1,200 people and as those 1,000 prisoners go through for breakfast, lunch and dinner, prisoners are scooping that food onto their trays," Marlan, who serves as MDOC's assistant director, said at the time. "So if a prisoner was HIV-positive and sneezed onto a food item and then a prisoner ate that food item and that prisoner had a lesion in their mouth they could contract the disease."

Another MDOC official, spokesman John Cordell, gave another explanation at the time, saying that life in prison runs on very different rules and it would be possible that a prisoner might feel an HIV-positive prisoner who was preparing and serving food was intentionally attempting to infect him. That, Cordell said, could lead the uninfected prisoner to attack the HIV-positive prisoner in "the big yard on Tuesday."

[snip]

In fact, MDOC policy does allow people with Hepatitis B and C to work in food service but under certain conditions. They are allowed to work as long as they don't have open cuts or sores, a runny nose or other obvious problems. Both viral infections which attack the liver have had infections linked to close contact, such as food service, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. HIV is only spread via exchange of bodily fluids.

Who, again, said we don't need better education about HIV?

Per my open letter post a few days ago, IKEA emailed me today to let me know that they will not honor my warranty without my reciept:

Dear Mr. Hoppe,

We have reviewed your letter, your blog and your photos of the current state of your sofa and your credit card statement.

We are happy and willing to discuss repairs of your sofa with you if you can provide us with even a copy of your original sales receipt. We do not electronically or physically archive every purchase that our customers make in our stores.

We have attached a copy of our Limited Warranty and the specifics of conditions and the requirement of the sales receipt to maintain the validity of the warranty. This is a copy of our warranty of pages 366 and 367 of our catalog.

IKEA stands behind its products and its Limited Warranty. Please do not hesitate to contact us again should you come across your original sales receipt.

All the best,
IKEA Canton Customer Service

Thanks, IKEA, for screwing me over. As I said before, I vow to never shop there again. Period.

Sigh. I need a new couch and have no money. Any ideas?

It's time for another installment of "The View From the Bottom"! For this episode, I invited my friend Maxime to join me for an episode of French vs. American bottom-goodness. We dish about topping tops, whether dating men not into anal sex would be a deal-breaker, and romantic tropes in gay culture. And yes those are watermelons. We made very tasty cocktails from them. Enjoy his accent!

Dear IKEA,

Two years ago I bought a beautiful, very modern looking Karlstad loveseat from my local IKEA. It was perfect for my small living room -- with a nice shade of green that complimented a painting a friend had done for me. I was thrilled. That is, until this month when things started to go awry.

I first noticed something was amiss when the base of the frame began to warp upwards, with dozens of tacks forbiddingly sticking out. It looked rather ghastly, but the couch continued to function well enough. And then one a random afternoon, I plopped down on the couch to watch some TV, and the left side collapsed to the floor. Wham! I was suddenly a few inches closer to the ground. A few days later, the same thing happened to the other side, resulting in this unpleasant site:

I was very much saddened. But I recalled that they claimed to have 10 year warranty on this product -- as documented on your company's website:

KARLSTAD 10 year warranty

What is covered?
This limited warranty covers defects in material and workmanship in the following components: frame, base, linen/supporting fabrics, legs, fittings, armrests, filling, bed mechanism and PIXBO HAVET mattress. This warranty applies to domestic use only.

What is not covered?
This limited warranty does not apply to the KARLSTAD comfort cushions that are sold separately. Click General Conditions below for more details.

How long does the coverage last?
The limited warranty is valid for 10 years from the purchase date by the original purchaser.

Great. It looks like I should be covered, right? The frame had essentially collapsed. I was the original purchaser, and it had been only two years since the couch was purchased. This should be the end of the story, but unfortunately it continues.

I went to the IKEA here in Michigan with the credit card statement in hand. It shows very clearly the charge for the couch and for the home delivery:

So I arrive at IKEA, wait 20 minutes in line to talk to a person, and they inform me that my warranty is void without the original sales receipt. But wait: My furniture was delivered -- AND I believe special ordered -- surely there must be SOME record? But no, she tells me, there is no record. And without such a record, I'm out of luck.

IKEA: This is unacceptable. Your company has a record somewhere of this transaction. That much is clear. Companies keep records. Its just what they do. So to tell me that there is no record is obviously disingenuous at best, an outright lie at worst.

Make things right, IKEA. Fix or replace my couch. It's the right thing to do. I want to continue my business there -- which has included shelling out thousands of dollars on furniture and home goods over the years -- but I cannot return without a sour taste in my mouth. Don't say you have a 10 year warranty if you intend to swindle your customers out of honoring it. Because that's what this feels like, even if its not your company's intention. So until you make this matter right, I intend to:

1) Keep this open letter posted on my blog. I will happily delete this entry as soon as the matter is rectified.
2) Not shop at IKEA. I'll go to Target for glasses. ArtVan for furniture. Hell, maybe even Wal-Mart from time to time. I love IKEA, but I can't in good conscious return. In my mind, they owe me a couch.
3) Tell my story to whoever will hear me. I'm not encouraging a boycott. I'm just sharing an experience of salty, impersonal customer service.

So please, I beg of you: Make this right. I'm not asking much. I'm not asking to be treated "special." I'm just asking for your company to honor its promise when this product was purchased.

Thanks very much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Trevor Hoppe

Me and Scotty are going to see No Doubt perform tonight at The Palace of Auburn Hills! Wew-hew! Sadly, we have to sit through Paramore open the show - but the wait will be worth it I hope!

Look at their fab set list!:

Setlist:

Spiderwebs
Hella Good
Underneath It All
Excuse Me Mr.
Ex-Girlfriend
End It On This
Simple Kind of Life
Bathwater
Guns of Navarone
New
Hey Baby
Running
Different People
Don't Speak
It's My Life
Just A Girl

Encore:

Rock Steady
Stand and Deliver
Sunday Morning

Agghhh!!!!!! I only wish they were playing "Tragic Kingdom" -- that song is such a fucking powerhouse. Actually I love all the songs on that album. Such a treasure!

Salon's Broadsheet has a piece analyzing the current student loan crisis that has been grossly exacerbated by the current economic recession. According to the Cato Institute, students today are taking out an average of $3,650 per year to pay for college -- more than double the figure from the early 1990s:

As Neal McCluskey, associate director at the Cato Institute, pointed out this week in a New York Times debate on student debt, in the 1990-91 school year -- the year before I started college -- the average full-time student received $2,640 in grant aid and $1,548 in student loans. Last year, grant aid was $4,656 and the average loan per student per year was $3,650. Over that same period, total charges, adjusted for inflation, at four-year public colleges rose 63 percent and 55 percent at four-year private colleges. The average graduate of a four-year public college in 2007 went into the working world with $20,000 in debt; for graduates of private colleges, it was $25,000. But as other Times readers have chimed in, poor and middle-class students at Ivys or professional schools can expect to walk away with $60,000, $110,000 or $160,00 in loans. Given that tuition, fees and estimated costs for a year at Harvard hit close to the average American household income of $50,000, even those who come from families with a healthy income will walk away with hefty loans.

It's disgusting that a "public" education in the United States come with a price tag soaring far past inflation into terrain only accessible by the wealthy. I can tell you that the students I teach at the University of Michigan are not representative of the state of Michigan -- a grossly disproportionate number of them are the wealthy children from Detroit's McMansion suburbs (of which there must be a dozen). They turn in scrapbook projects filled with pictures of their family cruises and glamorous trips to exotic locations. I don't blame them for their family's wealth. But I certainly blame the system that makes them think that it was by sheer virtue of their hard work and intelligence that got them admitted to this university.

I'm off to Detroit for an all-day meeting with the MSM Strategic Planning Committee. The organizer invited me to join a few months back, and today is the first meeting for my term. I'll let you know how it goes when I get back!

xoxo

T

Thursday the 21st there'll be a book fair in Royal Oak to benefit Ferndale's massive LGBT center, Affirmations. Jon Ginoli, lead singer of the Pansy Division, will be performing at 6:30 PM. Here's the deets:

Thursday, May 21, 5-10 pm at 500 S. Main Street, Royal Oak

Simply mention Affirmations or hand the cashier your printed voucher prior to making your purchase and Affirmations will receive up to 25% of net proceeds from your sale! Performance by Jon Ginoli, lead singer of the gay punk rock band, Pansy Division at 6:30 pm.

For more information about the Barnes & Noble Book Fair, please contact Carrie Copeland at 248-398-7105.

So get out and buy some books, ladies!

My friend Pedro recorded this photo essay RE: our trip this weekend to the Lake to celebrate our dear friend Maxime's birthday. It's pretty amazing.

It's been around since 1835, but this July Ann Arbor News will cease publication and reopen as an online newspaper that prints a twice-weekly print edition. A curious choice of restructuring, for sure. Obviously, many lament news like this as sign that society is further self-destructing. Others have surely run down to the store to hoard copies of their precious NY Times before it too becomes a thing of the past.

I've never been sold on the idea that newspapers disappearing was quite as catastrophic as people make it out to be. I certainly appreciate the value of an in-hand analysis of world events and politics. That I get. But it's not automatically clear that we won't still have access to this kind of information via the Internet, or that new technologies won't emerge to fulfill that need. Such as an in-hand, digital newspaper that updates itself and resembles paper -- which has been proposed but is obviously many many years away.

Some have argued that investigative journalism is one of the things that has been cut back on since newspapers began to gut their budgets -- and this seems to ring true. There will be things that will change as technology shifts. And we do indeed stand to lose some things. That's for sure. But we need to grow up and realize that technological change is NOT the first sign of imminent apocalypse. We're smack dab in the middle of a radical shift in the way information is produced, shared, and consumed -- the kind of shift not seen since the invention of the printing press. It makes sense that we have anxieties about that change, as people generally do in any time of radical social transformation.

But while some of these anxieties may be well-founded, most of it amounts to a senseless moral panic. Really people: get off your pretentious intellectual, NY Times-reading, self-righteous crusade about the death of intellectualism and forthcoming end of the world. I promise that the world is not ending. And that there will be smart people still when things settle. They may just not be as able to stash a copy of the NY Times in their messenger bags to evidence their intellectual superiority.

Just my daily rant about pop culture! :)

No, it's not Christmas just yet. But the dryer in my building is apparently broken -- unbeknownst to me when I threw my clothes in the wash. So I'm stuck with this solution: hanging my socks on my bookshelf. Oy vey. Thought it was kind of funny. Enjoy! Happy Mondays!

I'm on Spring Break this week, so Maxime and I flew into Mexico city yesterday. So far, we're having a FABULOUS time! No ability to upload photos of my own, but today we're meeting some friends here from Mexico to climb to the top of the "Angel of Independence" that majestically graces the Paseo de la Reforma. It's truly a stunning monument, and what's even better is that every Saturday from 10 AM - 1 PM, they allow you to climb up top! How cool! Here's a bit of 411 about the statue:

One of the most representative symbols of México City and the whole country, the Angel of Independence stands majestically in Paseo de la Reforma.

The first stone of this renowned monument was placed on January 2nd 1902 by Porfirio Díaz. The project was directed by the architect Antonio Rivas Mercado, who was also responsible for the Juarez Theatre in the City of Guanajuato.

This monument was inspired by a project that arose during the government of Antonio López de Santa Anna, meant to pay tribute to the heroes of Mexico’s Independence; it consisted in a stone zócalo, built in the middle of the Plaza of the Constitution, from which a Corinthian column would rise, crowned by an angel. However, this project didn’t come through, and by the end of the 19th Century, the architect Antonio Rivas Mercado retook it getting inspiration from famous columns in the world like the Tarajano in Rome, the one in Vendome Plaza in Paris and the one with Alexander in Saint Petersburg. All these columns were erected to commemorate the triumph of ideals in their respective countries.

After that, we're going SHOPPING! Fabulous!

Just down the road from me in Ann Arbor, Meefers is reporting that Michigan's hoitie-toitie Somerset Mall is demanding that Armani Exchange remove its AIDS Awareness message, featuring a large heart designed out of red condoms:

In bright red letters across the window of the Armani Exchange store in Somerset Mall are the words “Reasons to Love.” Ironically, this message is one that’s been tempered with a distinct lack of love and acceptance by mall officials, who have demanded that the store remove it’s previous Valentine’s Day display which contained an AIDS-awareness heart made out of red-foil wrapped condoms. Now there are simply mannequins behind these words. Dressed in red, white and black the mannequins are headless and also message-free.

At 76 Armani Exchange stores across the nation, the simple design of condoms hung together in the shape of a heart, helps the chain to promote AIDS Awareness. Armani partners with the National AIDS Fund, and the display is part of their “Give Love, Get Love” campaign to encourage safe sex. The store inside Somerset Mall is the only one Nationwide to ban the display, according to the Michigan AIDS Coalition.

Just further proof at how out of touch America is when it comes to sex, sexuality, and HIV prevention.

To celebrate my French friend Rostom's birthday, me and some friends are headed down to Chicago for a week of fabulousness. Expect some fun photos to come! Yay!!! I can't wait to get the FUCK out of Ann Arbor! Even if the high temp in Chicago tomorrow is supposed to be 10 degrees. Sigh. Can't win 'em all! At least it'll be snow-free.