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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • The Reagan administration purposely ignored HIV.

    As gay men, transgender women, and LGBT people in general were disproportionately afflicted with AIDS, some critics have suggested that Reagan’s lack of action was motivated by homophobia, though other commentators have put forth alternate explanations such as political inconvenience or ignorance. A common belief at the time held that AIDS was a “gay plague”, and many social conservatives of the time, including some in the White House, believed the response to the crisis should center homosexuality as a moral failing. Reagan’s response to AIDS is generally viewed negatively by LGBT and AIDS activists, as well as epidemiologists, while some commentators and scholars have defended aspects of his AIDS response. Criticism of Reagan’s AIDS policies led to the creation of art condemning the government’s inaction such as The Normal Heart, as well as invigorating a new wave of the gay rights movement.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_and_AIDS










  • Interesting.

    Now I’m off to find how a mfing snake ever became a symbol of health.

    The Rod of Asclepius takes its name from the Greek god Asclepius, a deity associated with healing and medicinal arts in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Asclepius’ attributes, the snake and the staff, sometimes depicted separately in antiquity, are combined in this symbol.[2][full citation needed]

    In honour of Asclepius, a particular type of non-venomous rat snake was often used in healing rituals, and these snakes – the Aesculapian snakes – crawled around freely on the floor in dormitories where the sick and injured slept. These snakes were introduced at the founding of each new temple of Asclepius throughout the classical world.

    The significance of the serpent has been interpreted in many ways; sometimes the shedding of skin and renewal is emphasized as symbolizing rejuvenation,[8][a] while other assessments center on the serpent as a symbol that unites and expresses the dual nature of the work of the Apothecary Physician, who deals with life and death, sickness and health.[10] The ambiguity of the serpent as a symbol, and the contradictions it is thought to represent, reflect the ambiguity of the use of drugs,[8] which can help or harm, as reflected in the meaning of the term pharmakon, which meant “drug”, “medicine”, and “poison” in ancient Greek.[11] However the word may become less ambiguous when “medicine” is understood as something that heals the one taking it because it poisons that which afflicts it, meaning medicine is designed to kill or drive away something and any healing happens as a result of that thing being gone, not as a direct effect of medicine. Products deriving from the bodies of snakes were known to have medicinal properties in ancient times, and in ancient Greece, at least some were aware that snake venom that might be fatal if it entered the bloodstream could often be imbibed. Snake venom appears to have been prescribed in some cases as a form of therapy.[12]