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He contrasted his achievements on AIDS with those of the Bush administration: "We more than doubled domestic spending. We established the AIDS czar, the AIDS council. We started the vaccine initiative. So I am very proud of our record -- and we did it in a hostile environment," he said. "So in 2001, Sen. Jesse Helms got $500 million more for AIDS. It was wonderful. And the  [Bush] administration cut him back. And for two years they took a position that the Global AIDS Fund couldn't pay for generic medicine. And they put this guy on the AIDS council that said that AIDS was a gay plague."

Um. Let's see. Did he mean the guy who was nominated (not put on) the AIDS council who talked about how he used to believe AIDS was a gay plague until he and his family contracted the disease, and has now devoted himself to recruiting churches in the battle against HIV and AIDS? That guy? Who's trying to score a few political points now?

Education:

• A Catholic college will rise in Florida | The founder of Domino's Pizza has started Ave Maria University, the nation's first new Catholic university in four decades (The New York Times)
  
  
• Mayor says relations improving | Harvard Finance Committee approves grants to the Orthodox Christian Fellowship and the Reformed Christian Fellowship after assurances that the groups do not deny membership to non-Christians (Harvard Crimson)
  
  
• Durham to have orthodox scholar as next bishop | The choice of Dr Tom Wright, canon theologian at Westminster Abbey and former Dean of Lichfield, restores a tradition of academic excellence long associated with the Diocese (The Times, London)
  
  
• Earlier: N. T. Wright: Making scholarship a tool for the church | Part of a package  on "The New Theologians" (Christianity Today, Feb. 8, 1999)

Money and business:

• Why invest in Africa? Because it's evangelical | Evangelical Christianity is a precursor to capitalism. (Archie Richards, Amarillo [Tex.] Globe-News)
  
  
• Church 'doing very well' despite £400m losses | Given recent difficulties on the stock market, the fund had still performed "magnificently," says Church of England (The Times, London)
  
  
• Church of England puts positive spin on £400m pension fund loss (The Independent)

Sexual ethics:

• Tories put faith in targeting religious vote | The Scottish Conservatives are preparing to stand on a new "family values" message during the Scottish Parliament elections in an attempt to tease out and harness the religious vote (The Scotsman)
  
  
• Tories still split over Section 28 | Iain Duncan Smith is facing a damaging double rebellion by Tory MPs and peers over his attempt to resolve the party's heated debate on gay rights (The Independent, London)
  
  
• Ministers oppose gay camp | Prayer vigil set March 5 in Pollock (The Town Talk, Alexandria, La.)

St. Valentine:

• Italians Find St. Valentine Relic | The silver relic, in the shape of the saint's face, contains fragments of his skull and has been missing for over 30 years (Zoomata, Italy)
  
  
• The origins of Valentine's Day | Anthony Aveni, an investigator of our holiday beliefs, has traced Valentine's Day from Lupercalia to the proclamation of St. Valentine's sainthood (UPI)

Sex, marriage, and relationships:

• Finding a match made in Heaven - because Christians go speed-dating too | The so-called Bridget Jones generation is turning its back on smoke-filled pubs and tacky nightclubs in the quest for true love (The Times, London)
  
  
• Explicit sex education is opposed by most parents in survey | Most parents want schools to teach their children the ABC's of sex education but disapprove of the more explicit guidance commonly used in sex-education classes (The New York Times)

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February (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47