The Boylan Brief #44

A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It's a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity.

-Jimmy Carter


Donkeys Better Than Wives

A textbook used at schools in Rajasthan, a western Indian state known for its conservative attitude toward women, compares wives to donkeys, claiming that the latter are better companions because they complain less and are more loyal to their ‘masters.’ “A donkey,” the book says, “is like a housewife…In fact, the donkey is a shade better, for while the housewife may sometimes complain and walk off to her parents’ home, you’ll never catch a donkey being disloyal to his master.”

The textbook, intended for 14-years-old students, was approved by the state’s Hindu Nationalist party government but has evoked protests from the party’s women’s wing. The state’s education official, A.R. Khan, has said that the comparison “was made in good humor.” However, as a result of the protests, the board of education is in the process of removing the reference from the book.

-Elina Bloch
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Iraqi Gays Murdered While U.S. Watches

According to gay Iraqi expatriates, the Badr Corps have waged a ruthless pogrom against gay Iraqis, luring them out of hiding via Internet chat rooms and then beating and murdering them. Despite their call for help, the U.S. occupying forces in Iraq have turned a blind eye to the Iraqi gays’ plea. "These assaults and murders have been reported to the Green Zone, but the Americans don't want to upset the religious authorities, and so they do nothing or treat gay Iraqis with contempt or as an object of humor," said Ali Hill, a gay Iraqi exile who currently resides in London.

Iraq's Badr Corps are supported by the Iranian government, which has used similar entrapment tactics against its gay citizens, and the powerful Shia group the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI). Violence against Iraqi gays has escalated since last October when Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani issued a fatwa declaring that gays "should be killed in the worst, most severe way" possible. The Badr Corps monitor the activities of unmarried and effeminate men and warn them to change their behavior—those who do not comply are arrested. When their bodies are found, they are bound and blindfolded with gunshot wounds to the back of their heads.

Many gay Iraqis fear that the Badr Corps-SCIRI pogrom will become an official policy with recent news reports that Abdel Mahdi, a leading SCIRI figure and current Iraqi vice president, will become Iraq's prime minister. The Iraqi Constitution, which was brokered by the U.S., codifies Shiria law, which mandates death for homosexuals, as the foundation of all Iraqi law.

-Anthony Punt
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TransMedicine for Transgender Patients

"Circle one: Male/Female" does not pose a problem for most people who fill out forms at the doctor's office. However, it does cause complications to more patients than one would expect. Transgender patients face difficulties in one of the most critical areas--medical care. According to statistical estimates, it is highly likely that every practicing physician will encounter at least one transgender patient during his or her career. Providing good health care for such patient calls for very specific skills, which doctors have not been willing to acquire.

Expertise, however, is only a part of the question. The other is compassion. "Many transgender persons fear doctors--so they simply don't see them," says cardiologist Dr. Rebecca Allison. Health-care avoidance seriously complicates the medical risks transgender patients naturally face, for they sometimes seek strong hormones on the black market. One tragic story is that of Robert Eads, a female-to-male transsexual who died from ovarian cancer after more than two- dozen physicians refused him treatment. The transgender community is growing and the provisions for it should follow suit.

-Esther Hwang
Hurt, Avery. "TransMedicine." The New Physician. April 2006: 26-28.


No Training for Ugandan HIV troops

Justifying their decision on humanitarian grounds, the Ugandan military has ceased training the HIV-positive troops in some army programs. In order not to shorten the lives of infected soldiers, military officials barred them from strenuous physical preparation. The army spokesperson had stressed that these actions are not to be viewed as discriminatory against theHIV-positive troopers.

Nonetheless, the decision of the Ugandan military has been criticized by the AIDS campaigners, who called it a manifestation of "ignorance" about the virus and argued that, provided appropriate medical treatment, infected soldiers can "take part in normal military operations." Military officials report that although the country is involved in an armed conflict with rebels in the north, more Ugandan troopers "are dying from HIV or AIDS-related diseases" than from war wounds.

The virus has killed about a million Ugandans, but the country's government prides itself on dramatically reducing the infection rate from 15% to 5%. This success is due to the so-called ABC campaign, which promotes Abstinence, Be Faithful doctrine, and Condoms as basic preventative measures against the virus.

-Yevgeniya Drobitskaya
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Fun Facts:

-A male kangaroo is called a Boomer

-A female kangaroo is called a Flyer

-The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards

-A hummingbird's heart beats 1,400 times a minute

-There is one million ants to every human in the world

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