DAVID GUILBAULT

PREMIERE OF HIV/AIDS DOC

HI folks.

As some of you know, I have been working as a producer/writer/videographer on a documentary the past four years for Diversity Films about HIV/AIDS and African-Americans. Well, next month is its world premiere.

It is called, "Why Us? Left Behind and Dying". It looks at why the AIDS epidemic is hitting the Black community so hard, through the eyes of 20 African-American high school students in Pittsburgh. Among the reasons are secrecy, homophobia, religious beliefs, genetics, forced migration, stigma, gender inequality, ideas of masculinity, distrust of medical systems, prison incarceration, poverty and racism.

The students in the film conducted most of the interviews with scientists, researchers, community activists and people living with HIV in their neighborhood The students, themselves, were also subjects of the film. The honesty they were able to bring out of our participants is gripping.

I'm asking you to encourage your friends and colleagues in NY and LA to go see the opening run. It is playing at the theaters listed below.

Claudia Pryor, the Director and Executive Producer, will be attending opening nights in both cities.

I am very proud to have worked on this untold story. Please help us spread the word about this compelling film.

Hope all is well with you and yours. Cheers for now. David.

Los Angeles Opening - Sept. 9-15, Grande 4-Plex, 345 Figueroa
New York Opening - Sept. 11-17, IFC Center, 323 Sixth Ave.

KENNEDY'S HEALTH BATTLE

Sen. Edward Kennedy, who passed tonight of brain cancer, while often on the wrong side of personal rectitude, was always on the right side of social justice.

Teddy spoke for the downtrodden and fought for their rights.  He never gave up the cause; never lost sight of the goal; never gave in to the defeat of politics or the politics of defeat.  We need to continue his lifelong battle to bring the civil right of health care to all Americans.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."- Edward M. Kennedy, Democratic National Convention, 1980

"The work begins anew, the hope rises again and the dream lives on."- Edward M. Kennedy, Democratic National Convention, 2008

Edward Kennedy, Senate Stalwart, Dies

THE UNINSURED

In an editorial, The New York Times looks at who the medically uninsured are in this country, and concludes: "Any nation as rich as ours ought to guarantee health coverage for all of its residents."

"Scores of well-designed studies have shown that uninsured people are more likely than insured people to die prematurely, to have their cancers diagnosed too late, or to die from heart failure, a heart attack, a stroke or a severe injury. The Institute of Medicine estimated in 2004 that perhaps 18,000 deaths a year among adults could be attributed to lack of insurance."

- Editorial, The New York Times

AN AQUARIAN EXPOSITION

It was late summer, 1969.  I had been to lots of outdoor music festivals.  I had already seen Jimi and Janis and Jim, the Who and The Band.  I lived in upstate New York and heard there was going to be "an aquarian exposition" down the road in White Lake, N.Y.  "Naw," I thought, "I'm festivaled out."   So, I decided not to go.  Thus I missed the epochal event of my generation.

And, while we're at it, RIP hot-lickin', guitar-inventin', multi-trackin', music-changin' Les Paul.

PHOTO CREDIT:  Jennifer Taylor, The New York Times

UNHEALTHY LIES

Congressional Republicans and health insurance lobbyists are lying to the American people - knowingly and cynically - to protect their greedy entrenched interests by killing health care reform.  That's the truth, pure and simple.

"The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems."

- Steven Pearlstein, The Washington Post

TEACHABLE MOMENT

Thoughtful op-ed piece by Frank Rich in The New York Times, entitled "Small Beer, Big Hangover", on race.

The comforting thing about each “national conversation on race” is that the “teachable moment” passes before any serious conversation can get going. ...

The one lesson that everyone took away from the latest “national conversation about race” is the same one we’ve taken away from every other “national conversation” in the past couple of years. America has not transcended race. America is not postracial. So we can all say that again. But it must also be said that we’re just at the start of what may be a 30-year struggle. Beer won’t cool the fury of those who can’t accept the reality that America’s racial profile will no longer reflect their own.

- Frank Rich, The New York Times