The 1st of December is a holiday back home. It actually celebrates our KISS-MY-ASS-SPAIN Independence Day.

But since a couple of years, when you ask on the street in Portugal why today is a holiday, they'll tell you it's because of AIDS.

Good thing is, teens think AIDS is important enough to deserve a national holiday.

Bad thing is, no one remembers our 371 aniversary of KICKING-THE-SPANISH-BITCH day

Worse part is, the government wants to cancel this holiday from next year. Imagine what it would feel to an American the erradication of the 4th July, to an Indian the 15th of August, etc...

Oh well...

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Fighting for Pluto's liberation from the Dwarf League since 2006 @(°.°)=@)x.X)' ' '

I lost several good friends and colleagues to AIDS in the 1980's - 1990's. It's a horrible, horrible thing. I remember it going from a taboo subject, to something openly discussed to something treated in an almost lackadasical manner.

I did a Master's thesis on how people reacted to learning their HIV status - the study was a bit flawed in that we didn't have enough people who tested positive at the time (which wasn't really a bad thing). Testing is a good thing - seems obvious now, but in the 1990's people worried about the psychological effects of finding out one is HIV positive, a throwback from the days when doctors frequently omitted telling patients they had cancer. And of course, psychological effects are there, but it's still better to know so you can protect yourself, get treatment and protect others. But anyway, although this wasn't a huge, groundbreaking study, it did help support the notion of home testing, and encouraged testing in general.