The Conversation Starts Here

I am writing today to ask you to assist me in raising money for the Lansing Area AIDS Network annual AIDS Walk. This could be an opportunity for you to do something right now that can benefit hundreds of people right here in Ingham county. As of July, Ingham County had 409 total cases of HIV/AIDS identified. Of those, 222 were HIV+ but had not progressed to any AIDS defining disease, while 187 of those cases were AIDS. The state of Michigan estimates that more than 100 people in Ingham county are infected with HIV but do not know it.

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The following video is being used in some schools in preparation for President Barack Obama’s speech to school students. The right wing is up in arms over the video, and over the speech.

But I wonder WHY there is a controversy over this? These are people sharing what they are pledging to do to make the country and the world a better place to live. OK, some of those pledges are perceived to be left wing. I can see how that riles some folks up. But for folks like Saul Anuzis, the former chair of the Michigan Republican Party, what are YOU doing to bring out country together, and make it a better place?

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The following two videos are brilliantly crafted and beat the screaming socks off the advertisements our campaign in Michigan ran (yeah seriously it was the open hood of a car looking at the engine. Cause as we all know, that has everything to do with marriage)The ad in Michiga was poorly designed, poorly written and poorly distributed in the important media markets. Most importantly, if failed to present a compelling HUMAN face and story about marriage equality.

Those complaints cannot be reasonable argued or presented with the following two videos.

From Ireland:

And from Maine:

My apologies I have not had time to plug the stories in here, but it has been one of those weeks. I am still not exactly sure WHERE the week went.

Anyway, as I reported earlier, the Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox has cleared Lansing City Attorney Brigham Smith of any criminal wrong doing in the release of a man’s HIV status in June. The man’s HIV status was included in a police report of his arrest on charges of indecent exposure. The arrest was part of a May sting operation in Lansing’s Fenner Nature Center.

And while Smith has been cleared, the fallout continues. City Councilmember Carol Wood (who is challenging Virg Bernero for the Mayorship) has said if she does not see a policy from the City Attorny on implementation on FOIA in the city within two weeks, she will introduce legislation to codify protections.

On that note, Smith has ordered city employees who deal with FOIA to be mindful of private medical information and “likely redact” the information from public documents. He says he does not have a policy in place, and will be convening a working group of stakeholders to help him come up with a policy.