geraldicus

In light of the current Big Brother 'racist' furor raging in the UK right now, or quite frankly even with out it, it amazes me that no one ever comments on how blatantly condescending and racist the Rigby character was to Don Warrington's Philip.

I remember on more than one occasion such 'choice' lines as (Rigsby to Philip): "What the hell would you know about that, it wasn't that long ago you lot were still running around half-naked with bones through your noses". Numerous other UK sitcoms were also marred with such bigoted, racist stereotyping such as Alf Garnett (Till Death Us Do Part) and the appalling Love Thy Neighbor's "Oi Sambo".

Shame such talented writers and actors had to stoop so low for such cheap laughs.

To my mind, an additionally disturbing aspect of this deeply enthralling 'theoretical' documentary was that I just caught it by chance at an obscure hour on one of the more obscure, pseudo fringe channels, namely Sundance. Why this documentary is not considered worthy of prime-time airing, allowing a far greater number of the population to see it and draw their own conclusions escapes me. But then again, maybe not.

In essence, was the HIV pandemic created by a fluke accident of tribal rituals or the 'cut hunter' theory, i.e. tribal hunters in central Africa (the Belgian Congo, now Zaire) becoming exposed to contaminated monkey blood containing SIV (Simian Imunodefficency Virus) through cuts or abrasions on themselves, or was this tragedy 'man made' through mass inoculations in Africa of Polio vaccine which had been cultured from monkey tissue contaminated with SIV which, when entering humans turns to HIV.

I could go on and on, but my simple advice would be, make this the next documentary you watch, I was hooked from beginning to end. One of its strengths is the way it puts across all the evidence supporting its key theories in a very matter-of-fact, understated way, hence avoiding slipping into the dangerous arena of 'sensationalist journalism'. It's enthralling, intelligent and, as one may imagine, deeply disturbing. It's a film, I believe, that should be seen by as many people as possible. So why haven't the more mainstream channels picked this up?. Maybe 'who's wearing what' on the Oscars red carpet is still deemed far more important.