"Statistics are numbers with the tears washed off"

If you ever get a chance to watch "Coming to Say Goodbye: Stories of AIDS in Africa," I hope you'll take it. The stories are of those who are suffering and those who are caring for them and trying to stem the epidemic, but the DVD also includes a discussion guide, fact sheets, and links to various resources (a leader guide is available at http://www.afrusaids.org). The quote above came from Dr. Brigid Corrigan, a physician working in Kenya, who remarked - of trying to put a "figure" on the magnitude of the crisis - "someone said statistics are numbers with the tears washed off... We're dealing with the tears."

I ordered the DVD months ago through some lay leader resource, but hadn't yet watched it. I was compelled to by this story, documenting the completely unsurprising effect of Bush's insistence that money for global AIDS-prevention favor those programs emphasizing abstinence over condom use: That policy is threatening the continued success of one of the few countries making headway in the crisis.