AIDS Hysteria In The 1980s

I recently leafed through the June 25, 1988 issue of TV Guide (when it was pocket-size and cost 75 cents). Before tossing it out, I tore out the "Cheers 'N' Jeers" column and put it in a folder marked "LGBTQ." Under "Jeers" was an item about how the openly gay AIDS activist Michael Callen, now deceased, was treated, or more accurately put, mistreated by the staff members at a New York television station where he was scheduled to be interviewed about being a person with AIDS.

According to TV Guide, based on information from the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), "a technician tossed him a microphone and refused to help him adjust it" and "the make-up artists refused to work on Callen."

I wonder if he pointed out this bad behavior to his interviewer when he went on-camera. If he didn't, he should have. There was a lot of misinformation and fearmongering in the media and elsewhere back then about how AIDS was transmitted.

When I met and spoke with Michael Callen at an AIDS forum held at Hunter College here in New York, I gladly and fearlessly shook his hand. This was back in the early nineties. After that handshake, I've lived to tell the story.

What was their problem?

Note: This blog post originally appeared on my Facebook page on March 27, 2023. I've made a few minor changes.

People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" Title Is Meaningless

While channel surfing early this morning, I watched The Wendy Williams Show on the Bounce channel long enough to learn that singer John Legend was selected to be People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive.

To me, the title is meaningless since every year a different man is chosen. The Sexiest Man Alive title should be a lifelong honor instead of a temporary one. If John Legend is the Sexiest Man Alive this year, why wasn't he last year? And what happened to the guy who held the title last year and the guy chosen before him?

It's clearly a ploy to sell more copies of People magazine and nothing more.

History And Ideas

"History is shaped by its battle of ideas, and I wanted to be in the arena, not because I want to fight, but because some things need to be said. And some things need to be defended."--Charles Krauthammer (1950-2018), conservative public intellectual/syndicated columnist, quoted in "Charles Krauthammer, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Columnist and Intellectual Provacateur, Dies at 68" by Adam Bernstein, The Washington Post, June 21, 2018, republished in the Los Angeles Times.

The Importance of African-American Media

"There's no way--and I say it with as much feeling and passion as I can--there's no way for any American to understand the South Side of Chicago or Harlem or Los Angeles without regularly reading African-American media."--Lerone Bennett, Jr., former executive editor, Ebony magazine, author, and historian. (From Richard Prince's Journal-isms, August 15, 2003.)

It's a safe bet that most of the white people who have recently moved to Harlem rarely or never pick up a black newspaper or magazine, opting instead to read the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Therefore they have little or no knowledge of the people among whom they have chosen to live.

Ian McKellen As Rupert Murdoch?

If there is ever a theatrical biopic or TV miniseries planned on the life, times, and media empire of Rupert Murdoch, an excellent candidate to play the role would be Ian McKellen, who bears some resemblance to the media mogul.