The Humble Condom's News Page

The news from Toronto last week was all about a mother's shock when her son came home with an interesting assignment: he had to buy condoms and then compete in a race to see who could put one on a wooden penis the fastest. 
The mother is taking the case to the school board, which she will ask to ban this kind of "lesson."  The mother, who is also a nurse, felt that parents should be informed of this kind of assignment, and that it was not appropriate for the age group - 14-year-olds!  But her greatest concern was just how upset her son was about the whole thing.
Perhaps making a race out of the whole thing will help the children remember the lesson, or perhaps it will al
After her 14-year-old son was assigned to buy condoms and compete with classmates to see who could place one fastest on a wooden penis, a distressed parent will ask her school board in Cambridge to require teachers to communicate with parents about upcoming lessons on human sexuality. A public-health nurse for 20 years, Linda Strobl said she doesn't oppose the curriculum that teaches Grade 9 students about sexually transmitted infections. However, she was incensed with the condom-buying assignment at her son's school-- 75 kilometres southwest of Toronto -- and even more concerned that she knew nothing about it until her son came home upset one day last fall, complaining he didn't want to do his homework for health class. "I was about to tell him he had to do it, when I saw his distraught face and he told me he had to buy condoms for a race,"Ms. Strobl said.

One of the pioneers of condom production and education, and still one of its biggest proponents and providers in the third world, Phil Harvey, says that he charges a few pennies for his c's - through his charities in places like India, Haiti, etc., - is because people appreciate and are more likely to use with care that which they have paid for.  Though not directly related to the story out of New Guinea last week, that philosophy did come to mind.More than two million condoms paid for with Australian aid money were left to expire in Papua by the government’s National AIDS Council Secretariat;  they were worth $123, 000 (US) dollars. The condoms are now past their sell-by date and cannot be given away or sold in this country that has the highest HIV rates in the whole Pacific rim. The loss has led to some research which has found that this office has a sad history of mismanagement, to include 100s of thousands of dollars spend on junkets and other goodies for the administrative staffs who were supposed to be managing the country's safe sex programs.board, which aims to reform its activities and look into serious allegations of mismanagement. Documents obtained by the news agency, AAP, show the secretariat has overspent its budget, with hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted - most notably on unnecessary travel. The documents also outline alleged abuses by staff. The secretariat’s new chairman Peter Barter, a former PNG health minister, says the stockpile was discovered during a recent audit. Let's hoep that the 45 million male and female condoms which should now be arriving there - all free! - will fill the bill, but what a horrible (another!) blot on the condom landscape.  (It’s estimated two per cent of PNG’s population is infected with HIV/AIDS, affecting between 40,000 to 60,000 people.)

At Massaschusett's Stonehill College a senior student - Katie Freitas - was frustrated that her college did not make birth control available to students, so she collected lots of freebies and made them available in the dorms.   But when administrators at the Catholic school learned about her efforts, they got rid of the condoms, citing the college's ban against distributing birth control on campus.
"We're a private Catholic college," Martin McGovern, Stonehill's spokesman. "We make no secret of our religious affiliation, and our belief system is fairly straightforward. We don't expect everyone on campus to agree with our beliefs, but we would ask people, and students in particular, to respect them."
McGovern said the college's policy follows church teachings, which oppose use of artificial contraception. Most Catholic colleges do not distribute birth control on campus.
"This is not a shocking revelation," that the college does not permit condom distribution, he said.
Freitas, who said she is not Catholic, said she decided to make condoms available because she was concerned about the consequences of students having unprotected sex.
"Abstinence can be part of sex-ed, and should be," she said. "But college students are going to have sex, and they should be encouraged to have safe sex. In certain moments, students aren't going to stop to run to CVS, so I think they should be available on campus."
The dispute at Stonehill echoes debates on access to birth control on other Catholic campuses in the region.
Students at Boston College recently passed a referendum urging the college to offer affordable testing for sexually transmitted infections and access to contraception.
I think this young woman should be applauded and that this ancient struggle needs to be relegated to the history books...ask Phil Harvey!

Bono, the lead singer with U2, makes the news a lot, with his outrageous remarks and his fantastic charitable work.  And, he looms large in the history of Ireland's birth control movement (it's in my book!), so it should not be a big surprise, I guess, that he has managed to stir controversy while doing a good deed with U2's latest BIG hit..."Put on your Boots."Even his own band did not know that this is East African slang for "put on a condom!"   Gotta love that sexy Irishman!