These are difficult times. Most everyone we know is cutting back. Some of us are looking for work, myself included. But for many these times are especially tough, like those struggling with HIV and AIDS. A situation made worse by Gov. Schwarzenegger’s threat to slash $80 million in AIDS/HIV funding, which would be used for prevention, education, testing, treatment and housing.

This weekend is AIDS Walk 2009 in San Francisco, and we will walk as we do every year. If you are able, please consider making a gift, no matter how small, to continue the fight against AIDS, and to help make up the difference for those who are unable to give. The AIDS Walk is our community’s single most powerful and enduring response to the AIDS epidemic, as the struggle against this disease is far from over. Every 9 1/2 minutes someone becomes infected with HIV. In the U.S., one in five people already infected don’t even know. And in San Francisco alone, 25,000 live with HIV every day.

If you are unable to give, please consider walking with us instead. The greater our visibility, the louder our message.

If you would like to sponsor Inside, Looking Out by making a donation, visit http://aidswalksanfran2009.kintera.org/inlookout. Thanks!

Warning… veering off topic…

On a humid July morning 40 years ago today, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin climbed aboard the most dangerous vehicle man had ever built, on a voyage to the moon.

I was two and half years old. I remember that day, or at least have convinced myself that I remember it, sitting in front of an old black and white television watching a streak of light hurtle towards the stars.

Like most boys growing up, I was fascinated by all things space and dinosaurs. While interest in the Jurassic and Cretaceous eventually faded, the love of space and space travel, did not. Astronomy books, science-fiction novels, movies, I couldn’t get enough. I was a certified space geek.

When I went off to college I decided to study aerospace engineering, with the dream of working one day for NASA or JPL, but soon realized I had little of the prerequisite discipline necessary for that field of study, ie the math. And there was a lot of it. So I switched to Journalism, which had only slightly more math than English. But my interest in all things space never waned.

Barely a year into my studies I watched in horror as the shuttle Challenger exploded into a million pieces across the Atlantic. I attended no class that day, not even the Astronomy elective I was taking. I remember President Reagan’s moving tribute later that same evening: “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved good-bye and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God…”

There have certainly been other triumphs and disasters since, but for me, none quite so much like the day humankind took their first steps on the moon.

In honor of 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 launch, the JFK Library and Museum explores the mission in extraordinary detail at WeChooseTheMoon.com. The site tracks the mission in realtime as it happened, creating a thoroughly immersive and cool experience. Be sure to check it out.

There are also some beautiful, and some rarely seen photographs from before, during and after the mission at The Big Picture: Remembering Apollo 11.

Looking back over these past 4 decades as a man in his early 40s, I had hoped by now we would have at least planted a flag, any flag, in the red sands of Mars. But unfortunately, no. In fact it’s been 37 years since we last walked the on the face of the moon. And now, as I approach middle age, it seems unlikely that either will happen, or happen again, in my lifetime.

But I am a space geek. And I am hopeful.

Video of that memorable launch and landing below.

Howard Dean sits down with Freshman Senator Kirsten Gilliband of NY to talk healthcare, the Employment Free Choice Act, and at the 4:50 mark, same-sex marriage and DADT. Watch:

There was a lot of concern when Gillibrand filled the vacancy left by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that she would not be a strong ally for the LGBT community. I think we can safely put those fears to rest.

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) and Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) serve up more of the same lies and half truth’s in the Family Research Council video below. Watch:

For the record, the bill does not curb free speech; it only applies to people who commit physical acts of violence against other people. This is just more fear-mongering.

It appears the hate crimes bill will be voted on in the Senate later today, but is encountering resistance from the usual suspects, the measure being called “highly explosive!”