The title of blog comes from a piece of graffiti I saw in the Uni library in 1983: Ronald Wilson Reagan with 3 6s, 1 under each of his names.

Shortly after hearing of Reagan's death, I blogged my initial response here and have since been quiet and thinking on the issue, not having talked about it here in meat-space or looked for information about his death on the web.

Last night was the first of three nights of "Angels in America" on the ABC. Shortly into the first chapter of the show, Joe talks of the wonders of Reagan. That got me going, it did, as I was beginning to find the silence on Reagan's silence on AIDS deafening. That the silence was lifted by a show on AIDS was most appropriate, one reckons. You can find more on "Angels in America" here.

This morning, in the print edition of "The Australian", on page 7 a short article entitled, "Gays still bitter at inaction on AIDS". You can find the e-version of "The Australian" article here.

The article then goes on to talk about Ronnie saying nothing about AIDS until just before he left office. His saying nothing is only a portion of the problem, though one of ACT UP's most potent messages is "Silence = Death", the other more important, for me, is "Action = Life". Ronnie was not only silent, he did not act. Death on both accounts.

Gays, is it, that are bitter about Ronnie's inaction? Yeah, right. Queers of all sorts, whores, junkies, blacks, the poor in developing countries: the list goes on. Bitter? Dead, many of us. Still fighting, some of us.

"Struggling to live in the face of a seemingly fatal disease", many of us. Don't know where that quote is from though can assure you it's not mine - just a rehash of a distant remnant of memory of something saw, heard, read.

Bitter doesn't even rate in the top ten.

¶ 07:44