friday, december the first is world aids day. that glorious day when everyone says “yay aids!”…or something like that. in all actuality, it (as i hope you already know or could ascertain from the ridiculousness of the previous statement) has nothing to do with the “yaying” of aids. there isn’t even a small “woot” for aids. as the world aids day internet website (worldaidsday.org) states, “world aids day, 1 december is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against hiv and aids. this year, it’s up to you, me and us to stop the spread of hiv and end prejudice.” to clear up any confusion, the whole “1 december” deal is simply a more europeanized way of saying “december 1″ (those europeans… they have to get all crazy when we’re trying to talk about aids). once you get past the europeanosity of the statement, you can see that it is a very lovely statement. it’s a rather important cause and needs the attention of the world.
but in my mind, there’s a bit of a hitch (and no, not the will smith kind). and that hitch is the name. world aids day. as far as the basic concept goes, it’s all there. working backward, it’s a day. it’s regarding aids. it’s taking place throughout the whole world. simple. concise. good. moving past the basis concept though provides a little hiccup. for example, the next day (december 2, or 2 december to the europeans) is another holiday in the united states, namely “national pie day”. on that day (i’m assuming), we’re all supposed to celebrate how great and wonderful and tasty pie is and appreciate it’s loveliness. december 16 is “national chocolate covered anything day” and apparently is in place so that we can smother things in chocolate and feast upon there delightfulness. these days (as trivial as they, especially the latter of the two, may seem) are clearly celebrated (by someone) in recognition and appreciation for what they are named after. we celebrate the positives of pie and chocolate covered anything. and that provides us the hiccup with world aids day. if we are to follow the same basic outline that we used with the other holidays, we’re apparently supposed to celebrate the delightfulness and loveliness of aids. yay aids! but that doesn’t make sense. there is no delightfulness or loveliness at all when you’re talking about aids. it’s an awful and mightily unfortunate disease. so instead of “yay aids”, we are much more drawn to say “boo aids”. but how can be boo aids when we’re supposed to be celebrating aids.
unless, of course, the name is misleading (not that any of you had caught on to that before now).
basically when push comes to shove and pigs are flying and the fat lady is belting out her tune and all that jazz, aids is bad. and world aids day is just trying to let you know. so i suppose that if you were to read that title somewhere and think “what!? a day to celebrate aids!?”, you’d still be thinking about it. and that’s a step in the right direction. thinking leads to interest which leads to research which leads to knowledge which leads to action. and that action is exactly the point. so even though someone may have the wrong idea at first, it all works out in the end. even with a name that is misleading and backwards, they still get their point across. plus, names like “world anti-aids days”, “aids is bad day”, or “we don’t like aids because it’s a bad disease and we don’t want you to get it but if you already have it you’re still good and we want to help you out day” just don’t have that flow that “world aids day” has.
so happy world aids day! but don’t get aids. that would be bad.
