Martin Delaney

The world lost a pillar of the HIV/AIDS activistism today with the passing of Martin Delaney . Marty was the founder of Project Inform and the person responsible for creating the FDA's "parallel track" policy along with Anthony Fauci at the NIH in 1989. As reported by Poz.com's Peter Staley, that policy "allowed patients with AIDS whose condition prevents them from participating in controlled clinical trials to receive promising experimental drugs."

In my own work as an activist and educator I can't tell you how many times I recommended and referred to Project Inform's incredible wealth of information for the care and treatment of people with HIV. In the days before the internet accurate information was key to our survival and Marty worked to not only gather but also disseminate this information to everyone who needed it, in an understandable format. On Monday January 19, 2009 Marty was just honored by Dr. Tony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases (NIAID), for his selfless work in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Marty was awarded the "Special Recognition Award for his lifesaving work to advance safe and effective HIV medications and inform people with HIV about their treatment options and health care."

Personally I had the privilege of knowing Marty and working with him over the years. I cannot imagine how we would have continued to make the gains we have in HIV that we have accomplished without his tireless work. I can only echo the words written by Project Inform,

Personally and through Project Inform, Marty has educated or counseled tens of thousands of HIV-positive individuals and their caregivers about how to treat HIV. A day does not pass in the life of this agency that we do not hear from a person living with HIV or a supporter about a life lengthened or saved as a result of Marty’s efforts.

If it were not for Marty's work, I do not know if I would be alive today either.

There was a slogan taken from a Dylan Thomas poem we used to use in ACT UP :
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light

Rest now old friend your work here is done.

So long Sam.

Life is like a game of Chutes and Ladders; sometimes you move forward, sometimes you get knocked back a few steps. In the afterglow of the inauguration of Barrack Obama we in Portland learned of a scandal involving our openly gay mayor, Sam Adams and a former aid named Beau Breedlove. Rumors of a relationship between the two were apparently a well known secret, keeping with a fine Stumptown tradition established by former Mayor and Oregon governor Neil Goldschmidt .

The editorial boards of The Oregonian and Portland Tribune and local gay paper Just Out are all calling for Adams resignation but many people still support the Mayor. People are quickly choosing sides on the issue of his guilt or innocence, with the progressive, liberal caucus Adams built supporting the mayor and established Portlanders calling for blood. The gay community is split down the middle, proud to have an openly gay man running a large US city but disgusted to be involved in a sex scandal.

To me the question is not a debate on the ethics of when someone is old enough to engage in sexual relations, the law is crystal clear about this fact. Rather the issue is one of the trust we place in our elected officials. Sam Adams lied about his involvement with Breedlove and then asked others to lie as well.

Is Adams being held to a higher standard? If he is it because he set the standard himself. In his 2007 Open Letter to Portlanders, Adams refers to the rumors of his relationship with Breedlove saying, " I have been the target of a nasty smear by a would-be political opponent." He continues that he "will not dignify the substance of this smear by repeating it - if you read the accounts you will see there is no foundation to it. The reason is simple: it is untrue."

The letter then continues to outline some of the very real issues facing LGBT youth in our society, including suicide, homelessness and depression.

Mr. Mayor, you forgot to mention one very real pitfall, the predatory behavior of adults towards impressionable adolescents and children. I know you are aware of this issue because you are on record as using it in an attempt to draw suspicions away from your own actions. You admitted as much in an interview with The Portland Mercury, Sept. 20, 2007, "If this had come from the right wing -- and it probably will now -- that would have been one thing. But to come from another gay man is something more hurtful. It plays into the worst deep-seated fears society has about gay men: You can't trust them with your young."

We reached an incredible milestone this week in America with the election of Barrack Obama as President. We affirmed as a nation that politics of race, gender and sexual preference do not matter, only one thing does; the truth. And that Mr. Mayor is what you failed to deliver when you had the chance, and that is why I feel you should resign.

Dear David...

The Portland paper Willamette Week has named Barack Obama their Rogue of the Week for his campaign's aggressive fundraising here in Stumptown. Glad I'm not the only person who is feeling shafted by not being able to find a job, having to choose between paying for health care and other essentials to like food and shelter. Between the shake down and the shaft (Rick Warren) this is starting to feel like the Reagan years again. How ironic that in the online version of the New York Times

today was an add welcoming skilled workers to reside and live permanently in Canada. So in addition to recruiting foreign workers here in the US on H1 visas, I wonder how many red blooded Americans like myself may consider emigration to the North? Healthcare for everyone and equal rights versus a $1000 tax cut under the proposed economic stimulus act. Come on this is hardly the WPA like program we were promised and we so desperately need, and who is going to pay for this? We've already mortgaged our grandchildren's futures to China. We need jobs Mr. President-Elect, good jobs that will not be exported overseas with the blessing of Wall Street and disgraced financial gurus. We need to stop our police of importing lower paid "guest workers" to do the our jobs when American citizens are willing and able to perform them at a fair living wage. And if we don't well we're already seeing what happens, the best and the brightest will abandon the ship while the band plays at your party.