A Humorous Solution to the AIDS Epidemic

Letters to a Young Conservative

"[Professor] Hart was one of the few people I have met whose jokes made people laugh out loud. His sense of humor can be illustrated by a contest that "National Review" privately held among its editors following the publication of a controversial Bill Buckley column on the issue of AIDS. People were debating whether AIDS victims should be quarantined as syphilis victims had been in the past. Buckley said no: The solution was to have a small tattoo on their rear ends to warn potential partners. Buckley's suggestion caused a bit of a public stir, but folks at the "National Review" were animated by a different question: What should the tattoo say? A contest was held, and when the entries were reviewed, the winner by unanimous consent was Hart. He suggested the lines emblazoned on the gates of Dante's "Inferno": "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here"."

- Dinesh D'Souza


I fell off the couch from laughing so hard when I read this...