fourteen roses

In Memoriam of the 14 women killed Dec. 6, 1989, in the Montreal Massacre:
Geneviève Bergeron, 21 years
Hélène Colgan, 23 years
Nathalie Croteau, 23 years
Barbara Daigneault, 22 years
Anne-Marie Edward, 21 years
Maud Haviernick, 29 years
Barbara Maria Klucznik, 31 years
Maryse Leclair, 23 years
Annie St-Arneault, 23 years
Michèle Richard, 21 years
Maryse Laganière, 25 years
Anne-Marie Lemay, 22 years
Sonia Pelletier, 28 years
Annie Turcotte, 21 years.

get your words off my condoms

its world AIDS day, time for some anger at backwards america. the latest anti-sex, anti-health act of the FDA sure won't help in the global effort to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS:

"In response to political pressure from social conservatives, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed changes to the existing labels for male condoms to include irrelevant and extraneous information that will only confuse condom users and may even discourage them from using condoms altogether. The FDA, while rightly recommending the label say that condoms used correctly and consistently greatly reduce the risk of pregnancy and HIV, suggests confusing information about the role of condoms in preventing human papilloma virus and genital herpes, and inaccurate information on nonoxynol-9. The proposed rules will be published in the Federal Register on November 14th, which will begin a 90-day comment period during which the public can respond.
Nearly one in five contraceptive users in the United States rely on the male latex condom, which is 98% effective at preventing unwanted pregnancy when used correctly and consistently and is impermeable to even the smallest of sexually transmissible viruses. Yet, opponents are engaged in an active campaign to undermine public confidence in the effectiveness of condoms, putting people’s lives and health at risk. " (see the Guttmacher Institute at http://www.agi-usa.org/)

be confident about condoms and let somebody in power know about it!