Don’t tell me the U.S. Government doesn’t know what’s important to Americans.  In a time when people all across the country, Republican and Democrat alike are demanding fiscal responsibility, the government has to make some hard choices.  Some projects have to be cut.  Some projects though, are just too important.  Some projects demand funding no matter how deep the whole of debt may already be.  Here’s a description of two of the projects that apparently fall into this category 1.  The National Institutes of Health are paying researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos Aires to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior while drunk — and just what can be done about it. (This one is relatively cheap, only $400,000).  2.  A $2.6 million grant will help a Wayne State University School of Medicine researcher establish and evaluate whether an alcohol and HIV intervention center can assist in reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS among sex workers in China.  You can read more about these studies here:Gay sex in Argentina,Chinese prostitutes

            I’m no University Researcher but that sounds like right about $3 million dollars to study high risk behaviors amongst drunk prostitutes and drunk gay men.  What’s worse is they aren’t even our prostitutes and gay men.  Someone has to study this stuff?  Someone isn’t sure why gay men and prostitutes engage is risky sexual behavior while drunk?  Let me see if I can put this together.  Many men enjoy sex sans condom (risky behavior), I am assuming gay men enjoy anal sex sans condom (even riskier behavior).  Prostitutes have sex with many partners (risky behavior).  Ok, so these two groups tend to engage in certain risky behaviors even when they are sober.  Drunk people have been known to engage in a variety of risky behaviors that the same person may not engage in while sober.  This includes sex with strangers, sex without condoms and wandering the streets of Mexico asking about “the donkey show”.  So I guess what we need to figure out is why when prostitutes in China and gay men in Argentina get drunk they engage in risky behavior.  I can see how that would take a college level researcher a while to get to the bottom of it.

            I would like to let the U.S. government know that my expertise is available.  I consider myself a leading researcher in the field.  Not the gay part, but I have an impressive resume in the “alcohol leading to high risk behavior” area of research, and I have already made myself Czar of a local bar.  I grew up in an Irish Catholic family and actually began my research before even attending college.  In fact, early on in my research there was even some legal trouble.  Apparently, police officers don’t care if your foolish behavior is part of a research project.  Since then, I have curtailed some aspects of my research.  As part of my research, I attended a spring break celebration in Mexico while I was in college.  I have attended a wide variety of venues where people engage in foolish behavior, college football games, wet t-shirt contests, back yard bar-b-q’s etc…  This research has been conducted for decades now and at no small expense to me.  I am willing to give a dissertation or write a paper on my findings (I do have a degree in Psychology) but I will expect some compensation.  Apparently there is plenty of money to throw around.  I think there can be an agreement that makes everyone happy.  Well, everyone except the taxpayers.