what happened this week

Sri Lanka is one of my ancestral homes. Last week, Cyclone Ditwah brought winds and heavy rain to Sri Lanka and Southern India. More than 400 people perished after the cyclone made landfall. Tens of thousands of people have lost their homes or are displaced. Countless roads, tracks, and infrastructure will take months or even years to repair. The people there need help. If you're in a position to do so, there are some options for getting funds to the country. Author Vajra Chandrasekera has a page of options for direct and mutual aid donations. I donated through the Venmo link he shared to help with medical supplies and other needed items. Sana Javeri Kadri at Diaspora Spice Company has a few recommendations for organizations as well.

The Sri Lanka Red Cross Society has a fundraiser at give.asia. They are building emergency medical camps and distributing supplies and water. They're also planning to build flood-resilient homes to replace the ones people lost. Palmera is working in Anuradhapura, Batticaloa, Kilinochchi, Kandy, Badula, and more. They are distributing meals, rations, and supplies to people in hard-to-reach areas in central/eastern Sri Lanka.

Please share these links with your friends and loved ones. If you make a donation, email me and I'll match it to one of the organizations above. Thank you!

This week (December 1) also marked World AIDS Day. This is a day when we remember the millions of people who have died during the AIDS and HIV epidemic. The World AIDS Day site says, "it's a time to show strength and solidarity against HIV stigma and to remember lives lost." This year the united states refused to mark World AIDS Day for the first time since it began 37 years ago.

One of the most remarkable ways we've honored people who died of AIDS is with the AIDS Memorial Quilt. The Quilt began with a single panel made by Cleve Jones in San Francisco. In 1988, more than 8,000 panels covered the National Mall in Washington, DC. There are now more than 50,000 panels commemorating loved ones and family members we've lost to HIV.

I took a few moments to browse through the interactive version of the Quilt. I know of the photos of it on the Mall; to be honest it's bigger than the mind can fathom. With this version I was able to zoom in on individual names or scroll in any direction I wanted. Some names are familiar. Freddie Mercury is there, but most of the names are unknown to me. Every one of them died too soon and too young.

As a gay man myself, the Quilt speaks to the sheer magnitude of elders and ancestors I've lost. To be honest, the only thing that separates me from the names on this Quilt are luck and time. But that's the only thing separating us from this or any pandemic. The HIV epidemic continues, both in the united states and in every country around the world.

If you have a few moments today, please spend some of it browsing the Quilt. I'm sending love to my queer friends and my poz friends and to all the people around the world who are at risk of contracting the virus.

I read a related poem by Richard Mirabella. It begins,

The Book I Found in the $1 Bin

I liked the cover because there was a sexy man on it and I’m easy to manipulate, so I brought it to the register and paid a dollar. In the sun, I opened the book and found an inscription: To Russel, with Love. John. On the back flap: the author photo. George Willet. He had a mustache, the kind I like. I could love him, have sex with him, kiss him, be his friend. But he died of AIDS at forty-two, right after the book was published in 1987.

Read the rest here.