bobbyw24
12-01-2011, 12:25 PM
My friend and former paralegal lost his years-long battle with AIDS this year and my former secretary contributed to a quilt panel in his honor.
http://www.worldaidsday.org/imgs/base/logo-wad.png
I met Jonathan in August of 2000 when I learned he would be my paralegal in a legal aid unit that served HIV+ people.
When he saw that I liked Springsteen (The Rising CD on my desk gave me away), he told me that Bruce was the first heterosexual musician to appear on The Advocate cover.
Jonathan would have loved Political World here. While a registered Democrat, he had a Libertarian bent to his views. He always noted that GOP President Bush signed the Ryan White Care Act in 1990 and that the illness struck all kinds of people---no group of humans is immune to it.
See: In Global Battle on AIDS, Bush Creates Legacy
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/washington/05aids.html?pagewanted=all
He told me that while a college student in Tampa in the1980s, he read about this "GRID" thing (AIDS was initially called Gay-related Immunodeficiency Disease) and thought that it would impact him one day--and it did.
When I started as a lawyer who exclusively helped people infected with or affected by with AIDS or HIV, Jonathan gave me many valuable lessons on the disease as well as homosexual lifestyle. He would say our lifestyle is exactly like yours except for whom we find sexually attractive and whom we sleep with. He was a great ambassador for people living with the illness. Jonathan's T-cell count was in the single digits in the mid 90s before the AIDS cocktail came out. He survived many years with the illness and devoted his career to providing legal services to people similarly infected.
We would talk for ours in my office about the illness and his life. (Anyone who knows me is aware that if you put on a reality TV show at 8 PM, I will be fast asleep by 8:05 PM but if you talk politics or take me to a concert, I am up all night, like Murray Rothbard.) He would get very explicit and he commented," I wish there were more Hets like you out there--the world needs more understanding people." I like to think that Jonathan's wish is being fulfilled.
Jonathon's favorite place was Amsterdam so this afternoon I am gonna put on Bruce Springsteen live in Amsterdam 1975 - 2CD - November 23 Bootleg
A quilt panel made in Jonathon’s memory to be added to the National HIV/AIDS quilt at a local church
Thanks for all your hard work, brother
http://www.worldaidsday.org/imgs/base/logo-wad.png
I met Jonathan in August of 2000 when I learned he would be my paralegal in a legal aid unit that served HIV+ people.
When he saw that I liked Springsteen (The Rising CD on my desk gave me away), he told me that Bruce was the first heterosexual musician to appear on The Advocate cover.
Jonathan would have loved Political World here. While a registered Democrat, he had a Libertarian bent to his views. He always noted that GOP President Bush signed the Ryan White Care Act in 1990 and that the illness struck all kinds of people---no group of humans is immune to it.
See: In Global Battle on AIDS, Bush Creates Legacy
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/washington/05aids.html?pagewanted=all
He told me that while a college student in Tampa in the1980s, he read about this "GRID" thing (AIDS was initially called Gay-related Immunodeficiency Disease) and thought that it would impact him one day--and it did.
When I started as a lawyer who exclusively helped people infected with or affected by with AIDS or HIV, Jonathan gave me many valuable lessons on the disease as well as homosexual lifestyle. He would say our lifestyle is exactly like yours except for whom we find sexually attractive and whom we sleep with. He was a great ambassador for people living with the illness. Jonathan's T-cell count was in the single digits in the mid 90s before the AIDS cocktail came out. He survived many years with the illness and devoted his career to providing legal services to people similarly infected.
We would talk for ours in my office about the illness and his life. (Anyone who knows me is aware that if you put on a reality TV show at 8 PM, I will be fast asleep by 8:05 PM but if you talk politics or take me to a concert, I am up all night, like Murray Rothbard.) He would get very explicit and he commented," I wish there were more Hets like you out there--the world needs more understanding people." I like to think that Jonathan's wish is being fulfilled.
Jonathon's favorite place was Amsterdam so this afternoon I am gonna put on Bruce Springsteen live in Amsterdam 1975 - 2CD - November 23 Bootleg
A quilt panel made in Jonathon’s memory to be added to the National HIV/AIDS quilt at a local church
Thanks for all your hard work, brother