ok, so dubya persists in promoting abstinence as the official government sanctioned form of sex ed.......with frightening results......at the hiv training i attended this week....i learned that the fastest growing subsector of hiv-positive individuals is the......12-16 year old white female group.....because there is no one out there telling them that oral sex is sex....and that any body fluid can give you hiv even if you are technically still a virgin.......good gracious sakes........telling our young don't do it hasn't worked for smoking or alcohol...or marijuana....what makes us think that telling them just say no to sex will do any different........much better that our young ones here about the risks involved with individual types of birth control....and how to use a condom....and to actually use a condon every time you don't want a baby...than to hope for the best with just say no.......someone recently sent me a video...possibly german....of a pappa and child in a grocery store.....with the child throwing a major tantrum.......and the dad was horrified.....and then the caption came up...use a condom...every time......no mention of whether the dad was married to the mamma...that part is really irrelevant.....what is relevant is the longterm ramifications of unprotected sex....and nobody in authority in america is allowing a frank discussion of these issues with our young.......just the same old same old.......i recently got a long look at the person in kentucky in charge of abstinence programs.......and i laughed audibly......for she was clearly one of the religious right.......and when she addressed our budget planning group she spoke etherially about preserving sex as a gift between married partners.......and i was stunned that this washington-based notion is alive and well in frankfort, and that there are people on the kentucky payroll who think that these 'stratregies' are valid........dreamworld...........while the un-enlightened 12-16 year-olds contract hiv.....thinking that as long as their collective pants are not down they are at no risk.........tragic.......