Saturday, December 2, 2006

Annual Christmas Party at Sam and Jan-Smith Donaldson’s House in McLean. Have been going to these parties for at least the past 10 – 15 years. The usual interesting and warm crowd was there. This party is probably the most friendly of all of the D.C. “glitterati” parties, mostly because of the warmth and friendliness of Sam and Jan as well as the fact that the same people come every year +/- whoever is hot at that time in the news. Over the years, we have run into virtually everyone who is “known” in DC. Some highlights from this year. Nice conversation with Colin Powell about AIDS in African-Americans. The recent UNAIDS numbers are out showing that of the new infections in the USA, among men, 50% are in Blacks and among women 65% are in Blacks. On Nov. 30, I was supposed to be on the CNN Paula Zahn Show speaking about this, but at the last minute, their producer (Marie….) cancelled because she said that they have a guest who is really the “face of AIDS, since she got infected from her boyfriend by heterosexual sex”. Turns out the guest is Regan Hoffman, the editor of POZ Magazine. Regan is a beautiful, blond, blue-eyed WASP from Connecticut who clearly accidentally got infected from her white boyfriend who was almost certainly bisexual. For every one of these, there are 10,000 poor black girls in an inner city area who got infected from their drug-user boyfriends. So there they were: beautiful, blond, blue-eyed and wealthy Paula Zahn speaking on TV with beautiful, blond, blue-eyed (likely also wealthy) Regan Hoffman smiling and saying how grateful she is that she has all the opportunities for treatment. Her only “concern” is that the mother of her new boyfriend was concerned that she was infected; but now all is well because the boy’s mother is an “educated person”. I had watched this on TV and almost vomited. This was as far from the reality of what the “face of AIDS” is than I could ever imagine. On Nov. 29 at a big HIV Prevention Meeting at the Mandarin Hotel in DC chaired by John Bartlett of Hopkins and Ken Mayer of brown, one of the themes and the points that I made in the press conference is that AIDS in the USA was assuming the face of a young black woman. My good friend Phill Wilson (CEO of the Black AIDS Institute in LA) gave an eloquent talk on this subject and he should have been with me on CNN instead of my getting bumped by Regan. I was pissed because that one 5-10 minute segment on Paula Zahn likely undid by 100-fold the points that I and Phill were trying to make at the conference. I had mentioned this to my CNN Producer friend Christy Feig and she was also appalled and has since brought it up to the CNN Board. In any event, at Sam’s Party, I was still pissed and discussed this with Powell who has been spending time on the lecture circuit talking about prostate cancer, particularly in black men. His comment was “What do you expect?…. It is CNN.” He promised that he would bring up the issue of AIDS in Black America in his lectures. I have known Colin for years from the time that he was Secretary of State and I had briefed him on AIDS and went to the UN with him during an UNGASS years ago. Also, had discussions with my old friend Lee Hamilton who is co-chairing the Iraq Study Group that will be giving their report to the Congress and the President in a few days. It will be extremely critical of the execution of the Iraq War and rebuilding. Also discussions with – Antonin Scalia, George Will (ABC), Nina Tottenberg (NPR), Bob Shieffer (CBS), Bill Plante (White House correspondent) and many others.