On Books and Circumcision

On Books and Circumcision

If you check my book list on the sidebar of this blog, you will see that I just finished reading Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. Oh shit! That's what I have to say about that.

I really hope that Mockingjay is in the library tomorrow.

Tonight I started One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia. So far so good; I've already laughed out loud, and I've not reached 50 pages. Linda Sue Park calls this book "a rarity: a book that is both important in its contents and utterly engaging in its characters... with the tremendous bonus of being beautifully written." Beautifully written indeed:

They call it littering when you carelessly drop things. They call the careless folks who drop things by a cute name: litterbug.

There's nothing cute about dropping things carelessly. Dropping garbage and having puppies shouldn't be called the same thing. "Litter." I had a mind to write Miss Webster about that. Puppies don't deserve to be called a litter like they had been dropped carelessly like garbage. And people who litter shouldn't be given a cute name for what they do. And at least the mother of the litter sticks around and nurses her pups no matter how sharp their teeth are. Merriam Webster was falling down on the job. How could she have gotten this wrong?

Not so beautifully written: this blog. What else? Well most newspaper articles I read. Unfortunately, most of the good writers save their stuff for wall posts on facebook. (Go figure.) Regardless of the quality of the writing, the stories can be quite interesting, or at least amusing, and often still informative. Medical male circumcision is hot news these days,

and I guess it should be considering the affect it has on reducing the risk of HIV infection (60%). However there are other risks involved with this reduction of risk:

Women were also complaining that men who undergo circumcision refuse to use condoms during sex, claiming they it was no longer necessary. It was noted that sensitisation was needed for men to understand that condoms are useful in preventing the transmission of HIV even after circumcision. In Kapchorwa, there was confusion regarding MMC and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

“There is a fear that promoting MMC may increase the FGM in Kapchorwa which was banned in this country,” Dr Lydia Mungherera, the Executive Director for Mama’s Club, explained. “People there think FGM in girls prevents the risk of HIV in women after learning that MMC does so in men.

And that my friends is one of the negative consequences of miseducation or lack of education in general.

Yikes!