杜然的blog——i'm blinded by blackness
恶搞圣诞2
杜然 发表于 2006-12-15 21:33:02
美军士兵命令一名伊拉克民众向圣诞老人表明自己的圣诞愿望。（提醒：图片和文字仅供娱乐，不必当真。）
在美军士兵的努力下，伊拉克呈现一派圣诞气氛。（提醒：图片和文字仅供娱乐，不必当真。）
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抓虾
割包皮和艾滋病
杜然 发表于 2006-12-15 21:20:10
在14号的《旧金山纪事报》上看到一则科技报道，说科学家在肯尼亚和乌干达进行了两项关于割包皮的研究，结果发现在割过包皮的男性中，艾滋病的感染率只有未割过包皮的男性的一半。去年，法国的研究人员在南非也发现，割包皮能提供60%的保护率（protection rate）。
好吧，还没割的兄弟们，赶紧上医院！
原文如下：
Two major studies of male circumcision in Africa have found that the simple surgical procedure reduces the risk of HIV infection by half -- a hugely important result that is likely to prompt many African nations hard hit by AIDS to promote it as a means to control the epidemic.
The separate studies in Kenya and Uganda were financed by the National Institutes of Health and compared HIV infection rates between groups of circumcised and uncircumcised men and teenage boys.
On Tuesday, an NIH safety panel examined interim results and found that the uncircumcised men in both studies were becoming infected at twice the rate of the men who had the procedure. The panel concluded it would be unethical to allow the experiments to continue until mid-2007 as planned without offering the surgery to the uncircumcised group.
The results are consistent with a similar clinical trial halted in South Africa last year after French researchers found that circumcision -- the surgical removal of foreskin from the penis -- offered a 60 percent protection rate.
"These results demonstrate that adult male circumcision, when performed by a trained medical provider, is both safe and effective at reducing the risk of HIV infection,'' Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a telephone news conference.
Fauci stressed that circumcision is one more tool available to fight HIV and should not be considered a replacement for other measures such as the use of condoms. "These results could be negated by a small decrease in condom use or the addition of more sexual partners,'' he warned.
AIDS prevention experts around the globe have been anxiously awaiting the interim results of the two trials after an early peek at the data in June led the NIH panel to order the studies to continue. The three African trials together were designed to offer definitive proof that male circumcision helped prevent HIV infection. Dozens of studies conducted since the 1980s found similar results but lacked the scientific rigor of a randomized clinical trial.
"This is not a magic bullet but a potentially important intervention,'' said Dr. Kevin De Cock, director of HIV/AIDS programs for the World Health Organization.
He said the agency will meet early next year to consider how African nations can safely offer the procedure on a massive scale. Adult male circumcision can cost anywhere from to 0 in Africa, and De Cock said it will be impossible for African countries to provide without substantial foreign assistance.
Dr. Bertran Auvert, the French researcher who conducted the earlier South African study, has reported that widespread adoption of male circumcision could avert 2 million HIV infections.
Reached in South Africa, he said the Kenyan and Uganda studies are consistent with his findings. "We now need to find ways to reduce the price of male circumcision and make it affordable. This is not yet the case,'' he said.
Doctors theorize that circumcision might protect against HIV infection because the foreskin is rich in a type of white blood cell that is a favorite target of the AIDS virus. In addition, some studies suggest that circumcised males are less likely to have other sexually transmitted diseases, which cause sores that serve as gateways for HIV to enter the bloodstream.
"This is a landmark day in the history of fighting this epidemic,'' said Robert Bailey of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who led the study in Kisumu, a city in western Kenya where the prominent tribe, the Luo, do not practice male circumcision.
A medical anthropologist, Bailey first became interested in circumcision for AIDS prevention in 1985, when colleagues in the field began noticing that HIV rates were much higher in regions of Africa populated by non-circumcising cultures. He suspected the higher rates partly explained why circumcising cultures in West Africa had HIV infection rates below 5 percent, while close to one-third of the adult male population eventually was infected in Botswana, Zimbabwe and the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.
In 1999, Bailey and UCSF researcher Daniel Halperin published a commentary in the British medical journal The Lancet challenging the public health community to take seriously dozens of studies showing that circumcision appeared to offer some protection against HIV.
That challenge ultimately led to NIH funding for the two clinical trials.
Halperin, now a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, said from Zimbabwe on Wednesday that he will crack open a bottle of Champagne to celebrate the study results. "Only a couple of years ago, people would laugh and make jokes about this. We've come a long way,'' he said. "Circumcision is now the only intervention for the prevention of HIV that has passed the highest standard for clinical trials. I think it's a pretty historical event.''
As a result of publicity about various circumcision trials, there is a 9-month waiting list for the procedure at public hospitals in Swaziland, where until recently Halperin was posted as a researcher for USAID.
Bailey's Kisumu study enrolled 2,784 HIV-negative men ages 18-24 beginning in 2005. It found a 53 percent reduction in HIV transmission among those who were circumcised. By the time the trial was stopped, 87 percent of participants had been followed for the two-year enlistment period.
The second study, led by Johns Hopkins University epidemiologist Dr. Ronald Gray, enrolled 4,996 HIV-negative men ages 15-49 in the rural Rakai district of Uganda, and the interim results showed a 48 percent protective effect in the circumcised group.
Despite the study results, circumcision remains a controversial medical procedure that critics consider genital mutilation. Anti-circumcision activist Marilyn Milos, a nurse who is executive director of NOCIRC in San Anselmo, said that while the trial results were interesting, "anybody who believes that circumcision will protect them from HIV is obviously making a deadly mistake.''
She contends that circumcision removes "the most erogenous tissue" of the male body and that the diminished sensitivity she said circumcised men experience is a further disincentive to use condoms. Consistent condom use, she said, remains the only proven method of preventing HIV, and programs that promote their use have reversed infection rates in Thailand, Senegal and Uganda.
"My greatest fear is that they will begin to circumcise more and more people in Africa and ultimately find out it was not effective,'' she said.
Mitchell Warren, executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, hailed the results of the three trials but warned that it is critical that any expansion of the procedure must ensure its safety.
"Male circumcision is a surgical procedure. It requires trained personnel, sterile instruments, and adequate supplies of items like gauze and bandages," he said. "In the developing world, these resources are often in short supply, and, in their absence, the procedure can lead to infections and even death.''
Meanwhile, researchers will continue to follow the health of the participants in the African circumcision trials. A fourth study, underwritten in Uganda by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will attempt to determine whether women also benefit from the reduced HIV infection risk in a population of circumcised men.
Women continue to bear the brunt of the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa, where this year UNAIDS estimates that 59 percent of the 24.7 million people living with HIV are female.
好吧，还没割的兄弟们，赶紧上医院！
原文如下：
Two major studies of male circumcision in Africa have found that the simple surgical procedure reduces the risk of HIV infection by half -- a hugely important result that is likely to prompt many African nations hard hit by AIDS to promote it as a means to control the epidemic.
The separate studies in Kenya and Uganda were financed by the National Institutes of Health and compared HIV infection rates between groups of circumcised and uncircumcised men and teenage boys.
On Tuesday, an NIH safety panel examined interim results and found that the uncircumcised men in both studies were becoming infected at twice the rate of the men who had the procedure. The panel concluded it would be unethical to allow the experiments to continue until mid-2007 as planned without offering the surgery to the uncircumcised group.
The results are consistent with a similar clinical trial halted in South Africa last year after French researchers found that circumcision -- the surgical removal of foreskin from the penis -- offered a 60 percent protection rate.
"These results demonstrate that adult male circumcision, when performed by a trained medical provider, is both safe and effective at reducing the risk of HIV infection,'' Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during a telephone news conference.
Fauci stressed that circumcision is one more tool available to fight HIV and should not be considered a replacement for other measures such as the use of condoms. "These results could be negated by a small decrease in condom use or the addition of more sexual partners,'' he warned.
AIDS prevention experts around the globe have been anxiously awaiting the interim results of the two trials after an early peek at the data in June led the NIH panel to order the studies to continue. The three African trials together were designed to offer definitive proof that male circumcision helped prevent HIV infection. Dozens of studies conducted since the 1980s found similar results but lacked the scientific rigor of a randomized clinical trial.
"This is not a magic bullet but a potentially important intervention,'' said Dr. Kevin De Cock, director of HIV/AIDS programs for the World Health Organization.
He said the agency will meet early next year to consider how African nations can safely offer the procedure on a massive scale. Adult male circumcision can cost anywhere from to 0 in Africa, and De Cock said it will be impossible for African countries to provide without substantial foreign assistance.
Dr. Bertran Auvert, the French researcher who conducted the earlier South African study, has reported that widespread adoption of male circumcision could avert 2 million HIV infections.
Reached in South Africa, he said the Kenyan and Uganda studies are consistent with his findings. "We now need to find ways to reduce the price of male circumcision and make it affordable. This is not yet the case,'' he said.
Doctors theorize that circumcision might protect against HIV infection because the foreskin is rich in a type of white blood cell that is a favorite target of the AIDS virus. In addition, some studies suggest that circumcised males are less likely to have other sexually transmitted diseases, which cause sores that serve as gateways for HIV to enter the bloodstream.
"This is a landmark day in the history of fighting this epidemic,'' said Robert Bailey of the University of Illinois at Chicago, who led the study in Kisumu, a city in western Kenya where the prominent tribe, the Luo, do not practice male circumcision.
A medical anthropologist, Bailey first became interested in circumcision for AIDS prevention in 1985, when colleagues in the field began noticing that HIV rates were much higher in regions of Africa populated by non-circumcising cultures. He suspected the higher rates partly explained why circumcising cultures in West Africa had HIV infection rates below 5 percent, while close to one-third of the adult male population eventually was infected in Botswana, Zimbabwe and the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.
In 1999, Bailey and UCSF researcher Daniel Halperin published a commentary in the British medical journal The Lancet challenging the public health community to take seriously dozens of studies showing that circumcision appeared to offer some protection against HIV.
That challenge ultimately led to NIH funding for the two clinical trials.
Halperin, now a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health, said from Zimbabwe on Wednesday that he will crack open a bottle of Champagne to celebrate the study results. "Only a couple of years ago, people would laugh and make jokes about this. We've come a long way,'' he said. "Circumcision is now the only intervention for the prevention of HIV that has passed the highest standard for clinical trials. I think it's a pretty historical event.''
As a result of publicity about various circumcision trials, there is a 9-month waiting list for the procedure at public hospitals in Swaziland, where until recently Halperin was posted as a researcher for USAID.
Bailey's Kisumu study enrolled 2,784 HIV-negative men ages 18-24 beginning in 2005. It found a 53 percent reduction in HIV transmission among those who were circumcised. By the time the trial was stopped, 87 percent of participants had been followed for the two-year enlistment period.
The second study, led by Johns Hopkins University epidemiologist Dr. Ronald Gray, enrolled 4,996 HIV-negative men ages 15-49 in the rural Rakai district of Uganda, and the interim results showed a 48 percent protective effect in the circumcised group.
Despite the study results, circumcision remains a controversial medical procedure that critics consider genital mutilation. Anti-circumcision activist Marilyn Milos, a nurse who is executive director of NOCIRC in San Anselmo, said that while the trial results were interesting, "anybody who believes that circumcision will protect them from HIV is obviously making a deadly mistake.''
She contends that circumcision removes "the most erogenous tissue" of the male body and that the diminished sensitivity she said circumcised men experience is a further disincentive to use condoms. Consistent condom use, she said, remains the only proven method of preventing HIV, and programs that promote their use have reversed infection rates in Thailand, Senegal and Uganda.
"My greatest fear is that they will begin to circumcise more and more people in Africa and ultimately find out it was not effective,'' she said.
Mitchell Warren, executive director of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, hailed the results of the three trials but warned that it is critical that any expansion of the procedure must ensure its safety.
"Male circumcision is a surgical procedure. It requires trained personnel, sterile instruments, and adequate supplies of items like gauze and bandages," he said. "In the developing world, these resources are often in short supply, and, in their absence, the procedure can lead to infections and even death.''
Meanwhile, researchers will continue to follow the health of the participants in the African circumcision trials. A fourth study, underwritten in Uganda by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will attempt to determine whether women also benefit from the reduced HIV infection risk in a population of circumcised men.
Women continue to bear the brunt of the AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa, where this year UNAIDS estimates that 59 percent of the 24.7 million people living with HIV are female.
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抓虾
一个表情猥亵的圣诞老头（恶搞圣诞1）
杜然 发表于 2006-12-14 14:33:17
送给所有来我blog寻欢的朋友，圣诞快乐！
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抓虾
顾彬说得没错
杜然 发表于 2006-12-13 09:01:42
德国汉学家顾彬接受“德国之声”访问时，以“中国当代文学是垃圾；中国作家相互看不起；中国作家胆子特别小……”炮轰中国文学，言辞激烈。对于姜戎的小说《狼图腾》，他的评价是：“《狼图腾》对我们德国人来说是法西斯主义，这本书让中国丢脸。”而对上世纪末在国内红极一时的“美女作家”，顾彬认为那“不是文学，是垃圾”。但顾彬似乎对中国的当代诗歌比较客气，他说：“中国诗歌方面还有一些不错的、了不起的作家，比方说欧阳江河、西川和翟永明等等，还有很多其它的。”而对其它文体的写作者，顾彬就没有这么客气了，他直言不讳地认为：“德国到处都有作家，他们代表德国，代表德国人说话，所以我们有一个德国的声音，但是中国的声音在哪里呢？没有，不存在。中国作家胆子特别小，基本上没有。鲁迅原来很有代表性。现在你给我看看有这么一个中国作家吗？没有。”
在SINA新闻后面的留言，我发现大部分留言的人都认同顾彬的观点，这个现象很有趣，我随后再说。
关于中国文学以及中国作家，大家都有目共睹，我们这个社会从来就听不到激烈的声音，永远是不痛不痒的批评，甚至置老脸于不顾的互相吹捧（最近有人不是提出龙作为中国的形象太过强势吗？好像还被上海的学者列为了研究项目，真是有出息的一帮“学者”。我建议：干脆把龙换成绵羊好了！）。对于“关系”的研究，一直被心理学家所忽视，这是令人惋惜的一大失败，没准研究透了还能整一诺贝尔奖，中国人不是想这个奖想疯了吗？
现在有一种不好的现象，许多知识分子、作家动不动就把责任推给体制：我不能说或者不能做是因为体制的限制。这是一个非常好用的借口。我在出版和媒体都有从业经验，了解现在的文学氛围较于新闻氛围要宽松得多，作家拥有更大的写作空间。但很遗憾，我看到的是一种隐遁和无为。
有一点，我和顾彬存在分歧：一个健全的社会是需要垃圾的，不过我们的问题是我们只有垃圾。对于美女文学，我也不喜欢，但我不能因为我的不喜欢而反对这些人的写作，以及她们的作品的出版。毕竟，好几十万的发行量表明有许多人对此类文学是存在需求的。再说，读书，哪怕是读一本被许多人所鄙视的书，总比把时间花在看着一群不男不女的超女和好“男儿”在舞台上又哭又笑要好。这就好比虽然快餐都是垃圾食品，但是吃非油炸的快餐总比吃油炸的快餐要好一点。
看到新闻后的留言版，我很惊讶大部分都在冷静地分析，没有诸如“要你这个老外来指手画脚”一类的歇斯底里的谩骂。我不太确定关注这种新闻的人是否有着理性、健康的大脑。在大多数时候，一则关于外国人对中国批评的新闻，往往后面跟来好几十页的疯狂咒骂，有时候我怀疑究竟是中国所有的疯子都在网上（网络就是一个虚拟的疯人院？），还是中国人早已成为了一群不知理性为何物的乌合之众？现在天天嚷嚷要成为大国，但是大国的国民要有大国的心态，一个由敏感、神经质的国民组成的国家，无论多强大，始终都是一个心态上的小国，与那些人一直所嘲讽的日本式的岛国心态，相距也不远吧！
昨天看到上海的一份报纸登载了一条新闻，说马来西亚有酒吧打出了中国女性免入的牌子，后面的回帖果然骂声不断。据我的了解，由于中国女性出国从事不良职业的太多，许多国家对于中国单身女性出国的签证发放都非常慎重。我不知道这个记者是职业素养不够还是在刻意煽动仇恨，我建议该记者加盟环球时报，那家报纸与此人的风格很匹配。
在SINA新闻后面的留言，我发现大部分留言的人都认同顾彬的观点，这个现象很有趣，我随后再说。
关于中国文学以及中国作家，大家都有目共睹，我们这个社会从来就听不到激烈的声音，永远是不痛不痒的批评，甚至置老脸于不顾的互相吹捧（最近有人不是提出龙作为中国的形象太过强势吗？好像还被上海的学者列为了研究项目，真是有出息的一帮“学者”。我建议：干脆把龙换成绵羊好了！）。对于“关系”的研究，一直被心理学家所忽视，这是令人惋惜的一大失败，没准研究透了还能整一诺贝尔奖，中国人不是想这个奖想疯了吗？
现在有一种不好的现象，许多知识分子、作家动不动就把责任推给体制：我不能说或者不能做是因为体制的限制。这是一个非常好用的借口。我在出版和媒体都有从业经验，了解现在的文学氛围较于新闻氛围要宽松得多，作家拥有更大的写作空间。但很遗憾，我看到的是一种隐遁和无为。
有一点，我和顾彬存在分歧：一个健全的社会是需要垃圾的，不过我们的问题是我们只有垃圾。对于美女文学，我也不喜欢，但我不能因为我的不喜欢而反对这些人的写作，以及她们的作品的出版。毕竟，好几十万的发行量表明有许多人对此类文学是存在需求的。再说，读书，哪怕是读一本被许多人所鄙视的书，总比把时间花在看着一群不男不女的超女和好“男儿”在舞台上又哭又笑要好。这就好比虽然快餐都是垃圾食品，但是吃非油炸的快餐总比吃油炸的快餐要好一点。
看到新闻后的留言版，我很惊讶大部分都在冷静地分析，没有诸如“要你这个老外来指手画脚”一类的歇斯底里的谩骂。我不太确定关注这种新闻的人是否有着理性、健康的大脑。在大多数时候，一则关于外国人对中国批评的新闻，往往后面跟来好几十页的疯狂咒骂，有时候我怀疑究竟是中国所有的疯子都在网上（网络就是一个虚拟的疯人院？），还是中国人早已成为了一群不知理性为何物的乌合之众？现在天天嚷嚷要成为大国，但是大国的国民要有大国的心态，一个由敏感、神经质的国民组成的国家，无论多强大，始终都是一个心态上的小国，与那些人一直所嘲讽的日本式的岛国心态，相距也不远吧！
昨天看到上海的一份报纸登载了一条新闻，说马来西亚有酒吧打出了中国女性免入的牌子，后面的回帖果然骂声不断。据我的了解，由于中国女性出国从事不良职业的太多，许多国家对于中国单身女性出国的签证发放都非常慎重。我不知道这个记者是职业素养不够还是在刻意煽动仇恨，我建议该记者加盟环球时报，那家报纸与此人的风格很匹配。
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抓虾
老布什情绪失控，演讲现场号啕大哭
杜然 发表于 2006-12-06 21:12:42
这个标题起得够苹果日报吧。
12月5日，老布什（在美国他被称为41，现任总统小布什被称为43）在佛罗里达州的首府塔拉哈西举行一场关于如何成为优秀领导者的演讲，在提到自己的另一个儿子、佛州州长Jeb Bush的时候，潸然泪下，久久不能自已。虽说是同一个父母所生，Jeb Bush的智商与情商都明显高于他的兄弟，现任美国总统。而且，据说老布什也以为比较有希望走进白宫的是这个儿子，而非小布什。写道这里，突然想到，如果有一天Jeb Bush也成为了美国总统（非常有可能），那我们该怎么称呼他？已经有了老布什、小布什，轮到Jeb Bush，我们是该叫他布什3号，或者简称布三？对于这次老布什的情绪失控，许多美国人认为他 一方面是为Jeb Bush感到骄傲，但更主要是为小布什的愚蠢感到难过，才造成这次情绪大崩溃。
香港有线体育台这次亚运会的特别节目叫《多哈A梦》。多啦一梦——叮当君可不会想到自己的名字还可以这么用，真是有创意！在开幕式上，当火炬手点燃亚运圣火之后，从火坑中冉冉升起一个酷似CCTV台标的东西，我一直想知道那究竟是个什么玩意儿，有什么寓意。
老布什情绪失控，演讲现场号啕大哭。但我想知道，站在他旁边的那个人在哭什么？！
中间那个东西，可不就是CCTV的logo？
12月5日，老布什（在美国他被称为41，现任总统小布什被称为43）在佛罗里达州的首府塔拉哈西举行一场关于如何成为优秀领导者的演讲，在提到自己的另一个儿子、佛州州长Jeb Bush的时候，潸然泪下，久久不能自已。虽说是同一个父母所生，Jeb Bush的智商与情商都明显高于他的兄弟，现任美国总统。而且，据说老布什也以为比较有希望走进白宫的是这个儿子，而非小布什。写道这里，突然想到，如果有一天Jeb Bush也成为了美国总统（非常有可能），那我们该怎么称呼他？已经有了老布什、小布什，轮到Jeb Bush，我们是该叫他布什3号，或者简称布三？对于这次老布什的情绪失控，许多美国人认为他 一方面是为Jeb Bush感到骄傲，但更主要是为小布什的愚蠢感到难过，才造成这次情绪大崩溃。
香港有线体育台这次亚运会的特别节目叫《多哈A梦》。多啦一梦——叮当君可不会想到自己的名字还可以这么用，真是有创意！在开幕式上，当火炬手点燃亚运圣火之后，从火坑中冉冉升起一个酷似CCTV台标的东西，我一直想知道那究竟是个什么玩意儿，有什么寓意。
老布什情绪失控，演讲现场号啕大哭。但我想知道，站在他旁边的那个人在哭什么？！ 中间那个东西，可不就是CCTV的logo？
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