According to Reuters the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported resurgent levels of preventable diseases syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia. "We have among the highest rates of STDs of any developed country in the world," John Douglas, director of the division of sexually transmitted diseases, told the news agency. "We are not honestly and openly dealing with this issue and it's the larger issue of sexual health," he added.

This slightly disproves the Republican idea that the good lord will prevent teenagers, filled to the brim with hormones, from having sex because it's sinful etc. The Obama administration say they will reverse the policy, after they've got around to reversing the 337 other really bad things that Bush did.

She used street lingo to describe the impotence that follows crystal-meth drug use and the change in male sexual position that such use sometimes prompts. Dr. Blank then stared at this reporter's tape recorder.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said. "Burn it when you're done. Put it in a bag when you leave."

Confronting Syphilis, Quite Candidly [NYT]

"Hello?"

"Annoyed. The Past is annoyed."

"And talking in third person."

"Cursed queeny affectations. They come out when I'm worked up. My hands are flailing like one of those rainbow-pride wind-socks that the lesbians love to put outside their apartment windows. Lesbians. Ugh."

"Am I gathering that your current mental state is somehow tied to the lady-loving ladies?"

"Yes, sprinklesplooge, YES! I just got kicked out of Meow Mix. Again!"

"Meow mix? Do you have a cat?"

"Um, yeah. Two. Miles and Groove are... wait. Meow Mix isn't about cats. It's about pussy. It's a dyke bar."

"Oh. Okay. Wow. A dyke bar. Filled with womyn? Not your usual venue."

"Well, this guy I'm dating... well, dating is probably wrong. We sort of hooked up in the peep booths at USA a month ago and his luggage just sort of started adding up on the bed-stoop. So I guess we're living together. I'm not really sure. Anyway, so, like, he's from a small town in Colombia and he met this lesbian girl from his home town and they've been hanging out. Since Meow Mix is just over on Suffolk and Houston, they've been going there."

"Suffolk and Houston? Trendy."

"Are you kidding me? Even I feel a little on edge when I cross Essex. Or maybe it's this new hydro I've been getting down at the lingerie shop. It's an ass-kicker. I was smoking it before I got to the bar."

"And they kicked you out for being high?"

"Fumblefuck. I'm a professional. No, Luis and La-La went there before me and asked me to meet them later. Which isn't totally true. Actually I wanted to do some Jager shots before I left to prepare me for the place. Lesbians make me nervous! When I got there this grunged-out L7-reject was working the door and she wouldn't let me in because I wasn't accompanied by a lady. And I'm all like, 'I'm an obvious 'mo, girlfriend,' and she was all, 'I'm not your girlfriend.' But then La-La came to the door and since she's the new clit in town, she was able to get me in. So there I was, the nice old-fashioned bar. The bad lighting. The Joan Jett-fueled jukebox. And no boys worth seeing except the one I'm already fucking."

"You're beginning to sound misogynistic. From what I understand, in small towns the gay bars are totally mixed with dykes and homos chatting it up and even dancing together."

"Well, I'm sure in the concentration camps everybody got along just swell, too. But in New York we have options. Don't get me wrong. I really tried hard. I thought up clever names for people like crispyclit and tingletwat, and that wasn't so bad. What really threw them over the edge though was when I decided the place needed a catwalk and started trying to get the girls to do some pageant for me. It was like a hundred Frida Kahlos up in my face, unibrows united. Before I could even say goodbye to my friends I was out the door with Ms. 45 herself pointing my way back down Houston."

"Hey. You said you'd been thrown out of there before? What happened then?"

"Oh, that night? Pretty much the same thing. I'm all for trying to make lesbian friends but it's like you're trying and trying to, like, push a rock up a hill and it just keeps rolling back down over you?"

"Like Sisyphus?"

"I've had gonorrhea once but—Oh, wait. I hear Luis at the door. Sounds like he's alone. Gotta find the lube! Talk soon."

"We took a risk, and that risk paid off," said Jacqueline McCright, a sexually transmitted diseases services manager with the health department.

Cartoon penises have their say on syphilis [AP]