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KAREN BARTA: Good morning. I'm Karen Barta with news from Minnesota Public Radio. Some Republican gubernatorial hopefuls and other party members are unhappy with party leaders who want DFL Saint Paul Mayor Norm Coleman to switch parties and run for the state's highest office under the GOP banner.

An open letter to party officials is reportedly in the works. Bill Fritz, a supporter of Lieutenant Governor Joanne Benson, says those concerned would welcome Coleman to the party. Fritz says they object to any effort that would elevate Coleman to front runner status over long-term or long time party members.

BILL FRITZ: There's a lot of spade work that individuals do within the party, and I think that those people who have toiled in the political vineyards, and to use a trite phrase, carried water for the elephant for a long time, are concerned that we're overlooking an awful lot of executive talent that currently exists in the Republican Party.

KAREN BARTA: Former Congressman Vin Weber, who is reportedly consulting with Coleman about the switch and run for the governor's office, could not be reached for comment.

Minnesota's lawsuit against cigarette companies will go to trial in January 1998. Ramsey County District Judge Kenneth Fitzpatrick set the date last week. The judge also rejected the industry's request to gain access to every state document related to gambling.

The state forecast includes a snow advisory today for the southwest becoming mostly cloudy statewide, highs from 10 in the far northwest to the middle 20s in the southeast. For the Twin Cities, cloudy with a few flurries and a high of 24.

Around the region, it's cloudy in Rochester at 7 degrees, light snow in Duluth at 13, and in the Twin Cities at 7 degrees. That's news from Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Karen Barta.

PAULA SCHROEDER: It's 6 minutes past 10 o'clock. This is Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Paula Schroeder.

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Minnesota's minority population is small but growing rapidly. The 1990 census takers found that in Minneapolis and Saint Paul, people of color are more likely to live in poverty than in most other cities around the country.

Today on our Voices of Minnesota interview, we hear Yusef Mgeni talk about the reasons behind the numbers. Mgeni is the President of the Urban Coalition. The nonprofit organization is an advocacy group for poor people who are African-American, American-Indian, Asian-Pacific, and Chicano-Latino.

The Urban Coalition was created 27 years ago by two dozen white Twin Cities businessmen as a response to the street violence in America's cities. Mgeni told Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson that today's corporate climate is different.

YUSEF MGENI: So many of the companies in 1967 were homegrown and were headed up by people who grew up, who spent their lives, and who really felt that they had an investment in our local community.

Today, you'd be hard pressed to identify a half dozen similar companies that really had roots. There have been a lot of mergers, a lot of takeovers. And with the downsizing, global competition, international outsourcing, corporations are at least, I think, perceived as being more interested in the economic than social bottom line.

And in the mid to late '60s, there was truly a belief that we're all in this community together and we all have some responsibility to try and make it more beautiful than it was when we inherited or were born into it. I'm not sure that that is as shared a collective value today as it was 30 years ago.

DAN OLSON: What has changed since the days of the street violence, change for African-Americans in this country, are African-Americans as a population in better economic shape.

YUSEF MGENI: My sense, Dan, is that what has changed is the phenomenon of class in addition to race. And the poverty of oppression today is truly colorblind. In the '60s, African-Americans were quite visible and public forms of hatred and discrimination were very visible in the media, in communities, in textbooks.

They are less visible today, but some would argue politically more acceptable given the recent shift in the political pendulum to the right, the attacks on people receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children.

And although in the state 80% of poor people are poor whites in the seven county metropolitan area, 66% poor whites in Minneapolis or Saint Paul, more poor whites than all four communities of color combined.

I think that the stereotypical images still survive and people view the welfare mother as Black, the drug dealer is white, the young person involved in violence, gangs, going to prison or acting up at the Mall of America on Black.

So despite the fact that this unfortunate challenge in our society has spread laterally across other races and communities, I think that some of the old negative stereotypes still exist.

In the main, the advancements within the African-American community have been individual rather than collective. A vice president here, a new person in this department, a new person there, rather than significant.

In fact, Sam Myers, at the Wilkins Center at the Humphrey Institute, and I were talking the other day and the home ownership rates for African-Americans in Minnesota in the 1990s are the same as they were in Mississippi in the 1930s. So in many respects, ours is still a tale of two cities with the outward perception, the land of Mondale and Humphrey and Lake Wobegon, milk and honey.

But beneath that, we have the highest percentage of people of color below the poverty level, 43.7% This is all for communities of color of the 25 largest metropolitan areas in the US. So it is literally a tale of two cities, depending on which end of the lens you're looking through.

DAN OLSON: Backing up on one of your points, more white people than ever now work side by side with people of color in the workplace. But our urban neighborhoods, I think, even to the casual observer, are still highly segregated. Why?

YUSEF MGENI: The concentration of poverty stems from the absence of options and alternatives. If you don't have options and alternatives, you don't have choice.

You take education, family income, whether or not you own private transportation, which, in large part determines where you can go to work, and that has the nasty habit of predetermining the decisions.

The difference between a decision and a choice is that the word decide has the same suffix as suicide, genocide, matricide, fratricide. It's usually non-negotiable and can be fatal. Whereas a choice allows one to keep options and alternatives intact.

If you live in low-income rental housing, if you receive a marginal education, if you don't own private transportation, you're restricted to going to work where you can get to on public transportation.

And the Federal Reserve Bank has identified a larger likelihood of discrimination in terms of mortgage applications and lending in the Twin Cities than in any other area in the United States.

If you connect all of those barges together, you wind up with concentrated poverty, low tax revenues, high crime, significant need for intense social services, not just corrections or police, but social workers, after-school tutoring English as a second language.

The fact that 85% of our family subsidized public housing is occupied by Southeast Asian refugees suggests a tremendous need for resources within the two core cities and the first tier of suburbs. What a lot of people don't realize is that poverty is growing twice as fast in the suburbs as it is in the inner cities.

DAN OLSON: On a percentage basis.

YUSEF MGENI: Correct.

DAN OLSON: In terms of absolute numbers, they still have a very small population of people of color, relatively speaking.

YUSEF MGENI: About 14% of people of color in the seven county metropolitan area live in the suburbs. The remainder are still in the central cities, Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

DAN OLSON: Concentration of poverty, it is often regarded as a negative, a bad thing. But poor people form communities, they belong to churches, they help each other. They have pride. Why is concentration of poverty necessarily negative?

YUSEF MGENI: Well, I would agree with you that it should not necessarily be negative if people choose to live together and build community, or what Harry Boyd calls a sense of place.

If they don't have those choices, if they don't have those options and alternatives, if they are restricted to substandard housing that's not energy efficient that cost 40, 50, 60% of their disposable gross income, if it is a high crime area, if their children run the risk of being drafted, forced into gangs or raped or to become teen parents or physically abused, then it becomes a problem.

And if you concentrate poverty beyond a certain point, which sociologists debate every day, you limit the capacity or the ability of positive options to come up within that environment. If you open a business, there needs to be a certain amount of capital flowing within the community in order to allow the business owner to pay the workers.

And if the capital is restricted to Section 8 vouchers, if it's restricted to food stamps, if it's restricted to bus tokens, if it's restricted to bartering type arrangements rather than cash, which does give you the largest number of options and alternatives, then you limit the opportunity for community and economic development within that concentration of poverty.

Because for all intents and purposes, you've created what John McKnight calls client communities, where the attention is directed at the deficiencies within that concentration rather than the capacity and how you go about building that capacity to promote self-help and self-determination.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yusef Mgeni, the President of the Twin Cities based Urban Coalition, an advocacy group for people of color who are poor. You're listening to a conversation with him as part of our Voices of Minnesota interview series here on Midmorning.

It's 16 minutes past 10 o'clock. Programming on Minnesota Public Radio is supported by 3M, who generously matches more than 900 employee contributions to Minnesota Public Radio. We return now to Dan Olson's conversation with Yusef Mgeni.

DAN OLSON: There is an African-American middle class that is growing. I don't know the extent of it. Is that the single most important economic development for African-Americans in our time?

YUSEF MGENI: I'm not certain. The phenomenon of the African-American middle class, not unlike that in any other identifiable culture, is one that largely promotes individualism.

Within the concentrated areas of poverty in the Twin Cities, if you do get a master's degree or an MBA, or after 10 or 15 years in the trenches in a company get promoted to division manager or vice president, and you'd like to reflect your new professional status in terms of your housing choices, should you have to move to Andover or to Eden Prairie or to Hudson, Wisconsin in order to find a four bedroom home with a two-car garage, in order to attain what you and your family are looking for by way of housing, by way of those you associate with?

William Julius Wilson and others have argued that that aspect of affirmative action has had a detrimental impact on those who are left behind in the inner city who don't have the option of buying the four bedroom Tudor on the lake or in the gated community.

And that there is a tremendous absence of pharmacists, attorneys, ministers, other Black professionals who had naturally ascended to leadership positions within the NAACP, the Urban League, church deacon boards, and other community based organizations, and that what's left behind is a vacuum.

DAN OLSON: There are more people of color than ever living in Minnesota, but it is still a very small percent of the overall state population. How fast will this change, do you think, in the next 5 to 10 years? And then what do you predict is going to be the reaction of white people as more people of color start moving into Minnesota's neighborhoods?

YUSEF MGENI: Well, the 1990 census projected about 6%, 273,000 of the people in Minnesota were representatives of the four communities of color. And there's some discomfort using those numbers because the Chicano-Latino community felt that it had half, again, as many more citizens and residents as were reflected in the census.

And I think that traditionally, the Census Bureau has honestly acknowledged that the greatest undercounts occur for people making that transition from home to independence between 16 and 30 years of age.

There's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that in the Southeast Asian community, the birth rate is 43 times greater than it is in the white community.

If you look at where young people are going to come from in the future, the number of young white people between 18 and 25 who would go to the University of Minnesota is going to decline by 25 50,000. The number of young people of color in that same age range is going to increase 3, 400%. That's where the growth rates are at.

White people have forgotten how to dance, the romance is gone from your lives, and you're not reproducing enough children to sustain yourself. Dan, you've got to carry more than your share of the load and get busy. Age is just a number.

And so institutions like the University of Minnesota that have been like a drop of water beaten on a rock talk about changes, painful but necessary. It's just slow and going on forever. We'll have no choice.

And one CEO told me that the businesses who not only expect to survive, but to develop as we are on the doorstep of the 21st century will not have to expect the workforce to adapt to the workplace, but they will have to expect the workplace to adapt to the changes in the workforce.

So we're hearing about celebrating diversity, we're hearing about more opportunities for growth and development and careers for women and people of color and persons with disabilities. And I think that that's just the tip of the iceberg.

You are going to need to be able to relate to people of different races, different economic classes, different sexual orientations, the whole 9 yards.

And people who can't will not make good managers, will not make money for their division or their company, will not have a place in the public interest sector. And so I think that the change is going to come for the better, whether we want it to or not.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Urban Coalition President Yusef Mgeni. This is Midmorning on Minnesota Public radio, and we will continue with our conversation with Mr. Mgeni.

And after that, we are going to get an update on the situation about AIDS here in Minnesota and around the world as well, with Minnesota AIDS Project executive director Lorraine Teel. So stay tuned for that.

It's 22 minutes past 10 o'clock. A 48-year-old Yusef Mgeni lives with his family in Saint Paul. His African-American forebears were prominent social activists. We return to his conversation with Dan Olson.

DAN OLSON: A few of us know that you had another life as a radio broadcaster at the University of Minnesota, KUOM. But who was Yusef Mgeni before that? You came from the Twin Cities, were you not? You're a native.

YUSEF MGENI: Born, raised, and miseducated right here, Dan. My great grandparent's homesteaded on what is now St. Albans University. And my great grandfather was the first African-American admitted to practice law before the bar in the state, built his home on that family land where Western Bank and Insurance is now located.

He was credited by W.E.B. Du Bois, a very dear friend of his, along with Booker T. Washington, with being the principal organizer behind the Niagara Movement, which led to the establishment of the NAACP.

And the Republicans were a little mad that these white Democrats had started this national Negro organization. And so three years later, they established their own, the National Urban League.

I was very fortunate, Dan. My grandmother was the first female and youngest president of the Urban League. I had an uncle who couldn't get out of the house because he had two holes in the heart and take my grandmother's car and took me with him.

So we would go to all the speakeasies and all the jazz clubs, and I was five years old and the barmaids would set me up on the bar and pinch my cheeks and say, isn't he cute? And buy me cream soda and Cheez-its. And so here I am going to all these jazz clubs, hearing all these greats, these jazz greats, just a little tyke coming up to somebody's belt buckle.

My mother, the strongest, most positive influence in my life-- I went to a Black parochial school in Saint Paul, Saint Peter Claver, that had to be 80% Baptist.

And the nuns, the Oblate Sisters of Providence who taught us received $1 a month plus room and board because they could not get into any of the white convents. They started their own. And we received, I have to hold my knuckles out in the aisle, one hell of an education if I'd said that back then.

And so to the Oblate Sisters of Providence, to my mother, to all of the strong race men and women in our community, who, because I was always a tall, skinny kid, took me under their arm.

And if you were tall, you sort of got pushed into leadership positions, and told me that they'd whip my butt if I didn't amount to something and make a contribution back into the community.

DAN OLSON: Saint Paul seemed to have a nucleus of African-American men and women who, while very clearly were aware of the boundaries that racism put on them, nurtured a community, nurtured professions, and still together in an atmosphere of violence. We think of that time as a kind of time of genteel racism where everybody knew their place and people got along, but it wasn't genteel at all.

YUSEF MGENI: No. In fact, my grandfather was the general counsel for the NAACP in Saint Paul, and he took the case of a Black man who couldn't even get a public defender. And my grandfather was hanged in his basement because he was involved in the NAACP and fought for social and criminal justice.

Now, I can forgive the people responsible for that, but I can't forget. And I say that because our country is never more than a heartbeat away from making a radical turn in one direction or the other.

And we could have the skinheads and the burning of the homes of immigrants like they have in-- I was in Berlin when a lot of the violence was being directed toward people who had come to that country fleeing political persecution, death.

And for the same reason that a lot of our grandparents came to Minnesota, people who had trouble with their weaves and their wabias. They were looking for living wage jobs, they were looking for decent housing, for good schools, and a supportive environment in which to raise their children and their grandchildren.

And we tend very quickly to forget that apart from American-Indians, this is a country of immigrants, some voluntary, some, like my ancestors, forced to come here. $0.80 out of every dollar at the time of the Civil War in the gross national product came off the backs of slaves in the United States. I can forgive, but I can't forget.

One of the things that angers me-- it's not frustration because frustration is like amnesia. You don't know who you are or where you came from, how you got to where you're at or what to do about it. You're just sort of pissing and moaning.

And I think the anger is righteous because absent the critical mass of Gary, Chicago, Newark, Detroit, Los Angeles, Baltimore, African-Americans in this community, being a very small percentage of the population, were not able to make power demands in a public policy context.

And instead the Minnesota model is people like Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, Hildebrand, Gordon Parks, absent the ability to make power demands, they made moral appeals. Gee-whiz, white folks, we like you. Won't you please-- let me see. How about like us back?

And so that's the Minnesota model, that's Minnesota nice. That critical mass is changing largely as a result of the concentration of poverty. And people are long past the period of being satisfied with making moral appeals.

Now, what angers me is that in comparison to the South side of Chicago, to Gary, to East St. Louis where cities go to die, can't even afford to collect their own trash, a group of nuns do it, for heaven's sakes, to wants, to Newark, to Washington, D.C--

In comparison to every comparable urban metropolitan area, the challenges and opportunities, notice I didn't say problems, that we face are so far more manageable here than they are anywhere else.

But that we had the will and the social consciousness to commit to identifying and engaging solutions, not overnight, but in a realistic time frame. And yet we tend to be out of sight as poor people, as people of color, out of mind.

DAN OLSON: Yusef Mgeni, thanks.

YUSEF MGENI: Thank you, Dan. It's always a pleasure.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yusef Mgeni is President of the Urban Coalition in the Twin Cities. Our Voices of Minnesota interview series is heard nearly every Monday at this time. The producer is Dan Olson.

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RAY SUAREZ: I'm Ray Suarez. Artificial wombs, frozen embryos, genetic screening-- reproductive technology can sound more like science fiction than medicine.

It's a rapidly changing field, and some feel it needs to slow down. That we need more time to think through the ethical and moral implications. Others say let science take its course, catching up with our own future. Next on Talk of the Nation from MPR News.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Talk of the Nation at 1 o'clock this afternoon here on Minnesota Public Radio. It's 10:30. I'm Paula Schroeder, and this is Midmorning. In the weather today, we are expecting snow in the far southwestern part of the state.

And around the Sioux Falls, South Dakota area, it's going to become mostly cloudy statewide with periods of snow in the afternoon in the far southwest. High temperatures today will range from 10 above in the Thief River Falls area to 25 degrees in Winona.

Light snow is likely with some accumulation in the South tonight, and lows will be in the single digits in the North to the teens in the South. There is a chance of light snow continuing tomorrow, but not much accumulation, highs from the mid-10s to the mid-20s. In the Twin Cities, look for a high today around 24 degrees.

Well, the Minnesota AIDS summit is underway at the landmark center in downtown Saint Paul this morning to mark World AIDS Day. Over 30 organizations are providing exhibits, performances, music, and poetry on themes related to AIDS and HIV. That will run until 3 o'clock this afternoon.

There has been encouraging news about the battle against AIDS recently. New combinations of drugs are having a remarkable effect on people living with HIV and AIDS, giving hope to those who had been facing a certainty of death.

But the HIV epidemic is still exploding among women and children in particular, and gaining momentum in Eastern Europe and Asia. A United Nations report released for World AIDS Day says 1.5 million people have died of AIDS this year, 350,000 of them children.

In the words of Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS, the epidemic is not over, far from over, not even close. New combination drug therapy can only be a dream for most people.

90% of people living with HIV and AIDS are in developing countries with little access to health care. The only true hope for the entire world is prevention, education efforts, new forms of protection, and the development of a vaccine.

Well, to find out what's going on not only around the world, but locally here in Minnesota, we have in our studios today Lorraine Teel, who is Executive director of the Minnesota AIDS Project. She has been in that position for seven years right at the outset, really, of what was the AIDS epidemic here in the state of Minnesota.

The Minnesota AIDS Project is a statewide nonprofit organization that provides services for people living with HIV. They work to prevent the spread of HIV and advocate for the fair treatment of people with HIV and AIDS. Lorraine, it's good to see you back again.

LORRAINE TEEL: Thank you.

PAULA SCHROEDER: This has been quite a journey for you, starting really at the beginning before the Minnesota AIDS Project was even formed you were, I know, involved in working with people with AIDS.

LORRAINE TEEL: Yes. Many years ago, when I worked in the field of chemical dependency and drug abuse, I worked with people early on who were infected through the use of injecting drug equipment.

Actually, the Minnesota AIDS Project was founded in 1983, several years before I came. And it was founded by a group of gay men who were really dedicated to working hard to understand what was causing this epidemic and to hopefully help those infected with this virus.

PAULA SCHROEDER: It really has been remarkably rapid in terms of the advancement in research. I know that as early as a couple of years ago, there were many, many myths out there, and there probably still are, about what causes AIDS, how one can get AIDS, how it can be prevented. And now we're seeing the advent of these new drugs that appear to be having a startling effect on some people.

LORRAINE TEEL: In the short-term, we do know that these drugs are having some really positive effects with many people living with the virus. However, there are many people here in Minnesota and obviously across the country, not to mention across the world, who don't have access to these drugs, individuals who cannot tolerate these drugs. They're very, very powerful drugs.

The treatment regime is very complicated. There are many dietary restrictions that accompany the use of these drugs. And the cost of the drugs is just phenomenal.

So for many reasons, not the least of which is we don't know what the long-term effect will be, it's really premature to say that the end is here. Or in other words, we're a long ways from a cure.

PAULA SCHROEDER: And yet we have cover stories on Newsweek magazine and there was an article in The New York Times Magazine recently saying, is this the end of AIDS?

As a person who works with people with HIV and AIDS and has seen the thousands of people not only contract the virus, but also die, are you concerned that the attention being given to the success of these new drugs is going to have a negative impact on the education and prevention efforts?

LORRAINE TEEL: That's an excellent point. It's a very complicated issue. On the one hand, certainly the last thing you want to do is eradicate hope. Because without hope, there really is little reason to continue on. And so you don't want to do that.

But on the other hand, you don't want to extend false hope, nor do you want to send out a message to people that you can now go out and engage in whatever types of behavior, unsafe behavior you might want to because there are these new drugs that you can take. And so it's really not a problem.

So it's a really fairly complicated issue. Unfortunately, as a society, we often want to focus on soundbites. If we can't have an easy answer, we don't want the answer at all. And so it's much easier to say, well, the end is here. We've got a cure, we've got the pills. Let's move on.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, and speaking of soundbite, you had an excellent one that really puts it all in perspective about just how important these new drugs are.

LORRAINE TEEL: Right. There was-- at the International AIDS Conference, which was held in Vancouver this past summer, one of the speakers mentioned that if the cure for AIDS was a glass of clean water, 90% of the world, 90% of the people in this world living with AIDS would die because they don't have access to clean water.

And so the advent of these new drugs, while in some areas of this country is terrific and is wonderful, for many, many reasons, we need to focus hard and concentrated on prevention activities, as well as extending care services for those living with the virus.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, that's what we want to focus on today, too, is the prevention and also on the development of care services, things that have been done to help people living with HIV and AIDS.

And you can give us a call here in the Twin Cities to find out what's happening in our part of the country. Lorraine Teel, the Executive Director of the Minnesota AIDS Project, is our guest today. Our phone number is 227-6000 in the Twin Cities or 1-800-242-2828, 227-6000 or 1-800-242-2828.

I know that there is a daycare center that's opening today. I mean, it sounds like someplace where kids go to play, but this is designed for people with HIV and AIDS who need care during the day.

LORRAINE TEEL: Right. It's actually called a day health center. It's the park house, and it's located in Minneapolis. And it's really a wonderful innovation. It's only one of seven programs like that in the country to provide services during the day for individuals who are experiencing a number of health complications due to the illness.

And they may be able to go there during the day, and their caregiver, their partner, spouse, whatever, would be able to go to work, have some respite from the care that they're providing at home. So it's really a nice new adjunct therapy.

PAULA SCHROEDER: What is the situation for people living with HIV and AIDS, is it, when it comes to their health insurance? Are they finding that oftentimes they max out and end up having a lot of medical bills?

LORRAINE TEEL: It really depends on the type of insurance. Insurance is so complicated, as I'm sure you know that there are a million different kinds of policies.

So whether it's a question of maxing out, whether it's a question of the co-pays becoming so great that they're finding it difficult to maintain the level of care that they need, whether it's within their HMO and inability to find a practitioner who really is knowledgeable about HIV and AIDS.

There are many complicating factors that people with insurance face, and that's why it's really nice to be able to turn to all the community resources so that they can get the referrals they need.

PAULA SCHROEDER: What about people who live outside the Twin Cities metropolitan area? Are there services available in rural Minnesota and in smaller communities?

LORRAINE TEEL: There are services statewide. Certainly the Minnesota AIDS Project, we do have offices outside the metro area in Duluth, St. Cloud, and Rochester. But there are also many other programs as well.

In Duluth, there are infectious disease docs certainly down at the Mayo Clinic. One of the local doctors here now is beginning to travel on a monthly basis up to Brainerd to provide services up there, which is a great need. But the stigma and isolation of people living with AIDS in rural Minnesota remains terrific.

PAULA SCHROEDER: It does. I was wondering about that, if the stigma continues to be such that a person feels that they have to hide their illness.

LORRAINE TEEL: Absolutely. We continue through our legal program hearing about really frightening cases of people who, for whatever reason, their confidentiality was violated by perhaps a meals program or a home health program. And now everyone in the community knows their status.

And despite what people believe in their head, it's hard often to translate that into their heart. And people will still react in a fearful manner, fearful that they will contract the virus or that their children will contract the virus through casual contact. Although we know that doesn't happen, it's often difficult for people to really internalize that.

PAULA SCHROEDER: If you have experiences with people with AIDS or perhaps know someone who has died of AIDS and want to share that with us, you can give us a call here today in the Twin Cities at 227-6000 or toll free, 1-800-242-2828, 227-6000 or 1-800-242-2828.

When it comes to people with HIV and AIDS here in the state of Minnesota, who's contracting the disease now? Is it still largely a disease of gay men?

LORRAINE TEEL: The disease here in Minnesota, the prevention programs remain hard hitting and targeted towards individuals with high-risk behaviors. And certainly the epidemic remains disproportional in gay men and with injecting drug users.

And because many drug users are disproportionately coming from communities of color, there are increasing numbers of particularly African-Americans infected with this virus.

But the virus here in Minnesota does look somewhat different. And that's to say that the majority of people becoming infected are gay men. Prevention is also very complicated. It's difficult to sustain behaviors over long periods of time.

We know that from all of the research we've done around smoking, around weight loss, around use of seatbelts, around driving while intoxicated, that people are people and people will engage in high-risk behaviors occasionally. And unfortunately, the price of those high risk behaviors can be HIV infection.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah, it's interesting to note that people are still contracting it despite all of the education, the prevention efforts, the needle exchanges, the condom distributions, all of those things that have gone on.

But it's almost like, well, the initial scare is over. So I would think that for educators, it becomes even more difficult to keep reminding people how important it is.

LORRAINE TEEL: It's difficult to sustain these behaviors. They're very private, intensely personal behaviors. Negotiating sex between two people, whether they're two men or a male and female, is not an easy situation.

And you need to really practice negotiating skills, you need to have a level of self-esteem and a level of confidence in your ability to talk with your sexual partners. And that is something that we as a society often don't value.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, particularly when it comes to teenagers and young people. I don't know what the average is now, but I think that perhaps the average age for young people having their first sexual experience is 15, 16 years old, something like that. Well, I know when I was 15 or 16, my negotiating skills were not that great.

LORRAINE TEEL: Right. And we often don't-- we wait too long to talk about HIV infection, to talk about STDs and so forth as parents. We like to think that our children are not engaging in these behaviors. And so we wait until, if you will, the cows out of the barn, and it's a little late.

And unfortunately, by then, patterns have become set, behaviors have become set, and it's difficult to relearn those. And kids, as you know, tend to think they're invincible, and they think things like this will not happen to me.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Yeah, certainly. By the way, I want to tell people, if you're interested in what is happening with AIDS in our community, there is going to be a conference this coming Saturday, December 7 at Macalester College called a State of AIDS Conference.

And if you'd like more information on that to register for it, you can call 373-9169 in the Twin cities or a toll free 1-800-243-7321, 373-9169 or 1-800-243-7321.

We're talking about the effectiveness of these new drugs. And certainly they're not available to all people, they don't work well for all people. But beyond the medications that are out there now, have there been any discoveries about people's lifestyles and how that might prolong their lives once they have the HIV virus?

LORRAINE TEEL: There is increasing research on the role of stress, the role of diet, [COUGHS] excuse me, the role of exercise, all of those kinds of factors in the longevity.

And what people really are finding is that while those things certainly are important towards an individual's peace of mind and mental health status, that often the two things that cause this virus to progress most rapidly are the genetic background of the person infected and their ability to stave off and to fight this virus.

And second of all, the infectiousness, if you will, the level of toxicity of the virus. There are different strains of the virus. And so whether you were infected with a highly virulent form or a less virulent form is as important as your own particular genetic background.

PAULA SCHROEDER: And while the physical symptoms are being treated, I would think that the psychological factors are absolutely devastating for people to have to deal with.

LORRAINE TEEL: Certainly we continue to see people newly infected, really seeing that their life is over. And suddenly at 22 or 31 years old, coming to the Minnesota AIDS Project, wanting advice and help for end of life decisions when in fact, they may be facing a very healthy 10, 15, 20 years. We don't know.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, that was one of the points that I know was made in a couple of articles I've read about people who do get on these new drugs and say that, well, they have come to grips with the possibility of dying within the next decade or so.

And now there is a question about that, about whether they will, in fact, die in that amount of time. Of course, we all have to face the end of our lives but--

LORRAINE TEEL: But they really need to seek services. The important piece is not that you become infected, and then you just say, well, OK, now I'm fine for 10 years, so I don't have to do anything. That's absolutely not true.

You really should call the AIDS line, get a referral to a physician, to a clinic where you can talk with a health provider who really understands and knows a lot about these drugs. There are many opportunistic infections, diseases that people with HIV get that can be staved, that you don't have to get.

The number one leading cause of death from AIDS actually is a type of pneumonia that is preventable if you can access those drugs to keep yourself from becoming infected with pneumonia.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Is it important-- again, reading somewhere that if you do get started on these new drugs to treat AIDS, that they have to be taken within the first six months of being diagnosed with HIV?

LORRAINE TEEL: Well, that they're not as certain about as they are certain with these new drugs. Once you begin taking them, you have to continue always taking them. That if you stop taking them, that the virus will mutate and will become drug-resistant.

So the importance of maintaining that regime is critical. And as I said earlier, it's a fairly complicated regime that involves taking pills four times a day, often taking six pills at a time, taking them within certain hours of meal time, and then not eating for long periods of time after or before. And each of them is different. And so it's a fairly complicated situation and not one to be entered into lightly.

PAULA SCHROEDER: As you look at the future for AIDS, what do you see? Are we going to continue to see people dying? Because, again, I heard just last week that more people died of AIDS in the last year than had in the previous 10 years.

LORRAINE TEEL: Yeah, here in Minnesota, we're seeing some very startling good statistics for a change, which is that we're seeing decreasing numbers of people dying. So we know that people are living longer, that people are accessing medications, that people are doing a good job of working with their health care provider.

On the flip side, however, we continue to see hundreds of people a year here in Minnesota newly infected. And so what does the future hold? The future says strongly that we need to come to terms with prevention.

And it's very difficult year after year after year to continue to say that, but we see here in America alarming teen pregnancy rates, alarming teen rates of sexually transmitted diseases, all of which are behaviors which will allow an individual to become infected with HIV.

We continue to see high rates of teen suicide amongst gay and lesbian teens because of low self-esteem, because of community pressure, because of homophobia. And we as a society continue to not want to deal with sexual behaviors and with the use of drugs amongst our children.

PAULA SCHROEDER: Well, hopefully we will continue this conversation. It doesn't sound like it's something that's going to go away anytime soon at all.

And once again, there is the Minnesota AIDS Summit, which is taking place today at the landmark center in Downtown Saint Paul. You might want to get over there and find out what some 30 organizations are doing to help people living with HIV and AIDS.

And there is also the Minnesota or the State of AIDS Conference that is being held at Macalester College this Saturday. Lorraine Teel, I want to thank you so much for coming in and giving us this update on this ongoing HIV/AIDS crisis.

LORRAINE TEEL: Thank you very much.

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GARY EICHTEN: The Broadway musical, one of America's great art forms, was in trouble. Lots of revivals, not much new. Then along came Andrew Lloyd Webber. Never mind that Webber is British, his smash hits revitalized the form. Hi. Gary Eichten here inviting you to join us for Midday.

Andrew Lloyd Webber, creator of a string of hits, including Phantom of the Opera, Cats, Evita, Sunset Boulevard, is speaking at the National Press Club, and you can hear live coverage on Midday. Midday begins weekday mornings at 11:00 on Minnesota Public Radio KNOW-FM 91.1 in the Twin Cities.

PAULA SCHROEDER: During the 11 o'clock hour of Midday, Gary will speak with a retail analyst about Dayton Hudson's poor sales figures over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. Some say Dayton's lack of a presence at the Mall of America could make a big difference in the company's future success. That's coming up on Midday at 11:00.

Around the region right now, we have temperatures ranging from one above at Bemidji to 20 degrees at Sioux Falls, South Dakota. We do have a snow advisory in effect for the far southwestern part of our listening area today. And otherwise, it's going to be cloudy.

Brainerd is reporting a temperature of 5 degrees right now. It's 4 in St. Cloud, 0 in Fargo-Moorhead. In Duluth, it's partly sunny and 13 degrees, 0 in Thief River Falls. Mankato has a 10 degrees, 9 degrees in Rochester. And in the Twin cities, it is 11 degrees, heading for high temperatures today from 10 above in the far northwest to the mid 20s in the Southeast. Here's Garrison Keillor in the Writer's Almanac.

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GARRISON KEILLOR: And here is the Writer's Almanac for Monday, December the 2, 1996. It was on this day in 1954, the US Senate voted to censure Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin by a vote of 67 to 22.

On this day in 1942, the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was set off by a team of scientists at the University of Chicago, directed by physicist Enrico Fermi in a squash court under the stands of the university's football stadium.

It's the birthday of inventor Peter Carl Goldmark, born in Budapest in 1906. He was an engineer for the CBS Laboratories in America. He developed the first color television system. He came up with the long playing record, the 33 and 1/3 revolutions per minute phonograph record.

It's the birthday of Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis, born in Crete, 1885. Best known for his novel Zorba the Greek and for The Last Temptation of Christ.

It was in 1867 on this day, Charles Dickens gave his first reading in New York City. His fans stood in lines two miles long to get tickets to hear him read. John Brown was executed in Charles Town, West Virginia on this day in 1859 for his raid at Harpers Ferry.

It's the birthday of the French painter Georges Seurat in Paris, 1859, the originator of pointillism, the technique that broke natural light into an array of tiny painted dots.

He died young at the age of 31, produced about 500 drawings, 40 smaller paintings, and 7 monumental paintings, the most famous of which was the Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

It's the birthday in 1840 in Alnwick, Northumberland, the English book designer and binder, Thomas James Cobden-Sanderson. He was a lawyer who turned to bookbinding in his middle age and founded the Doves Press, which produced beautiful books around the turn of the century, most notably the Doves Bible.

It was in 1823, on this day, President James Monroe set forth what would be called the Monroe Doctrine, telling the colonial powers of Europe to keep their hands off North America as well as off South America.

And in 1804, on this day, Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I at Notre Dame. He set one crown on his own head, then another on the head of his wife, Josephine.

Here's a poem for today by Seamus Heaney entitled Scaffolding. Masons, when they start upon a building, are careful to test out the scaffolding. Make sure that planks won't slip at busy points. Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.

And yet all this comes down when the job's done, showing off walls of sure and solid stone. So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be old bridges breaking between you and me, never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall confident that we have built our wall.

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Paul entitled scaffolding by Seamus Heaney from his collection Death of a Naturalist, published by Faber and Faber, and used by permission here on the Writer's Almanac for Monday, December 2.

Made possible by Cole's enthusiast media Publishers of Historic Traveler and the HistoryNet.com, where history lives on the world wide web. Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.

PAULA SCHROEDER: That's Midmorning for this Monday. And thanks so much for joining us. I'm Paula Schroeder. We'll be back at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning. Hope to see you then.

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KEVIN KLING: Hi, you guys. This is Kevin Kling. Hoping that you'll listen to my stories on All Things Considered. All Things Considered weekdays at 3:00 on Minnesota Public Radio KNOW 91.1.

PAULA SCHROEDER: You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. 11 degrees at KNOW-FM 91.1 Minneapolis Saint Cloud-- Saint Paul. And this is Midmorning, we are expecting thickening clouds today with a high around 20 degrees in overnight low between 15 and 20 with a chance of some scattered light snow showers. Cloudy tomorrow with a high near 25.

GARY EICHTEN: Good morning. It's 11 o'clock, and this is Midday on Minnesota Public Radio.