Dan Pallotta

1.03.2004

Saturday, January 3, 2004

These are the statistics as of the end of 2002, according to World AIDS Day/UNAIDS:

People newly infected with HIV in 2002: 5 million
AIDS deaths in 2002: 3 million
Estimated number of people living with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2002: 42 million
Total of AIDS deaths at the end of 2002: 28.1 million
Total number of AIDS orphans: 13.2 million

If the governments of the world cannot seem to act in concert to bring emergency relief to the millions of people dying of AIDS in agony - if the governments of the world do not have the initiative or the will to get protease inhibitors to them all on an emergency basis and for as long as they are needed - if the governments of the world cannot, for whatever reason, rise to the challenge of this critical hour for humanity, then the people must. This is a problem that can be solved. We have the medicine. How long can we stand idly by and watch the death toll rise? If this is not the issue that will rally popular action around the world, what issue ever will? If this tragedy will not inspire humanity, can humanity ever be inspired? At how many millions of deaths and orphans will we be moved to act? 50 million? 75 million?

What do we need to end the AIDS epidemic? We need a goal. We live in this goal-addicted culture where people set the most impossible goals for their personal advancement and for business. The I-want-to-be-a-millionaire-by-the-time-I'm-thirty culture. The we-must-increase-sales-by- 20%- by- the- end- of- this- quarter- culture. And it happens! It should come as no surprise to us that we are in a fog about the end of the AIDS epidemic. We have set no goal for it, despite the fact that we use goal-setting to meet every other objective we have our eyes on in the world. We are inundated with goal-setting messages in television and advertising, from Tony Robbins telling us to take charge of our lives to the army telling us to be all we can be. But who is telling us to take charge of the end of AIDS? Who is telling humanity to be all that it can be? Where is the global goal for the end of AIDS? There isn't one. There is no global declaration of a date for the end of the AIDS epidemic. This is what is missing. In the absence of a deadline, the governments of the world say it will take us seventeen years to get back to the moon, at least. In the 1960s we did it in eight. Why? Because we had a goal that drove us to do it in eight. We need such a goal for the end of the AIDS epidemic.

How do we begin? Because if we sit back and accept this, we will sit back and accept anything. It is definitely time to begin something aimed at the total eradication of this tragedy. It was time a long time ago.

1.02.2004

Friday, January 2, 2004

The greatest opportunity in our world today lies, paradoxically, in our failure of imagination. My observation is that, as both individuals and a society we create within an extremely narrow range of our imaginations. God endowed us with this amazing gift and we do not use it. Our greatest hope lies in its awakening. We fail to imagine on both sides of the middle. We fail to imagine how horrible our world could be if, say, a nuclear war broke out, or our computer infrastructure were destroyed, or our electrical grid were completely sabotaged. We fail to imagine how horrible that world could be, and so we do not act with any urgency to prevent it. We simply don't imagine it ever happening. Similarly, we fail to imagine the little children dying of AIDS and hunger in gargantuan numbers, and so we bring no urgency to the task of their rescue. In the absence of imagination there is resignation to the way things are.

Similarly, we do not dare to imagine how beautiful the world could be. We have put a limit on the amount of joy there can be. That limit is not imposed by God. Interestingly, God is lighter than humanity. God wants us to lighten up but we are too busy with our obsessions to hear Her. God wants us to experience boundless joy, but we don't believe we deserve it, so we do not imagine such a world. We think God is immature! We think God needs to get more serious, like we are! God created the toucan. The flamingo. The panda bear. God is Dr. Seuss. Imagine a world where strangers all talk to one another. Imagine a world where, when someone gets a flat on the highway, a dozen cars pull over to stop. Imagine a world where one day we all decide we will wear the same color. We have purple day and yellow day and lemon-lime day. Just like children would. Imagine a world where adults skip down the street singing to themselves, and others join in, instead of the world we have now, where our eyes are pointed to the ground and our heads are full of anxiety, and the rest of the world is shut out of our world, and we shut out of theirs. The serious mind reads what I just wrote and calls me a foolish child. Out of touch with reality. Silly. Stunted somewhere along the normal road to becoming a cynical resigned adult. Yet the world where we sing and dress in lemon-lime is the one we really want. Why do you think Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is a beloved classic? Because that's the world we want to live in. A world where our imaginations are self-actualized - that is, where they have become what they truly are, instead of what others want them to be.

I just finished reading Thomas Merton's "New Seeds of Contemplation." For all the seriousness and depth of the book, the last few pages contain these words: "What is serious to men is often trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us as 'play' is perhaps what He Himself takes most seriously. At any rate the Lord plays and diverts Himself in the garden of His creation, and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all, we might be able to hear His call and follow Him in His mysterious, cosmic dance. When we are alone on a starlit night; when by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat; when we see children in a moment when they are really children; when we know love in our own hearts; or when, like the Japanese poet Basho we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash - at such times the awakening, the turning inside out of all values, the 'newness,' the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident, provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance."

And then there is the famous Nietchze line - "I have always envisioned a God that dances."

God aches for partners. How serious are we that we feel we must cover for a God who is too happy, carefree, and light. Let us pray to God that She might give us the grace to be more like Her. Let us pray that She give us the grace to allow ourselves to use the imaginations She gave us.

Thursday, January 1, 2004

May we see tremendous miracles - the likes of which we have not even dared to imagine - occur in our world in 2004. A blessed new year to all of you.

12.31.2003

Wednesday, December 31, 2004

Tonight, I wonder what the new year's resolutions are of a nameless, faceless AIDS-orphaned child in South Africa stricken with AIDS herself and with absolutely no hope of a future.

12.30.2003

Tuesday, December 30, 2003

USA Today is conducting a poll on, can you believe this, whether to replace the image of Franklin Delano Roosevelt with that of Ronald Reagan on the dime. Yes, let us erase all vestige of a time when the government had compassion for its neediest citizens. Let us erase all memory of a time when "bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free" had meaning. Let us delete the faith and belief we once had in the immigrant. Let us melt the hero of the working classes off of the one little memnto of him they had. Let us memorialize the greed of the eighties in the strongest possible way. Let us memorialize the abandonment of people with AIDS. Let us honor our toughness and reject our love. Let us walk proudly into our new era of unparalleled selfishness, pride, and disregard for all but our own advancement.

Ronald Reagan is no more or less human than the rest of us - no better or worse. It is not about him. It is about all his era stood for, and how harsh, graceless, and lacking in beauty it was. It seems to me that a dime is a symbol of the poor, because it's about all they ever have in their pockets. It should carry the face of one who cared for them, openly and unabashedly.

If you would like to vote against the deletion of Roosevelt's legacy, click here and check off his name when the question pops up.

12.29.2003

Monday, December 29th, 2003

The day before yesterday I wrote about the cost of providing protease inhibitors to all of the people who die of AIDS every year, figuring that it would cost about $18 billion a year. Here are some other things to compare that to:

Annual Cigarette Sales in the U.S. $80 billion

Annual Candy Sales in the U.S. $24.3 billion

Annual Jewelry Sales in the U.S. $39.5 billion

Annual Nike, Adidas, and
Reebok Sales Worldwide $19 billion

Annual Illegal Drug Sales Worldwide $300 billion

Annual Box Office Revenues Worldwide $21.4

Annual Coca-Cola Sales Worldwide $20 billion

Total: $504.2 billion (half a trillion dollars)

In the face of facts like these, putting an end to the AIDS epidemic is not some kind of a great vision. It is a minimum standard we would have to meet to call ourselves a civilized society. The fact that we regard it as some great, impossible, unreachable achievement is simply a testament to our unwillingness to sacrifice one iota of our opiates. How convenient that it is impossible to end the AIDS epidemic. That means we don't have to give up any of our diamonds. It's impossible, so let's do nothing. We can't possible feed the hungry if we intend for there to be enough food around for us to stuff our faces.

12.28.2003

Sunday, December 28, 2003

"People seem to think it is in some way a proof that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars. On the contrary consider how in spite of centuries of sin and greed and lust and cruelty and hatred and avarice and oppression and injustice, spawned and bred by the free wills of men, the human race can still recover, each time, and can still produce women and men who overcome evil with good, hatred with love, greed with charity, lust and cruelty with sanctity. How could all this be possible without the merciful love of God, pouring out His grace upon us? Can there be any doubt where wars come from and where peace comes from, when the (people) of this world, excluding God from their peace conferences, only manage to bring about greater and greater wars the more they talk about peace?" Thomas Merton

This passage is from a collection of Thomas Merton's best paragraphs. It is entitled simply "Seeds," and was edited by a man named Robert Inchausti. You can find it under either his name or Merton's. It was a collection that had a profound influence on me and led me to Merton's autobiography, "The Seven Storey Mountain," then "New Seeds of Contemplation," and several of his many other books. I find him to be the most lucid, loving, powerful writer I have ever encountered. He consistently inspires me and renews me. I recommend "Seeds" very highly as an introduction to his work. I will warn you that he's heavy - very heavy. But if you're looking for something on God that is more substantial than the simple feel-good quote books and new age authors, Merton may be what you're looking for.

Click here to read a bit more about Merton's persepective and ideas