The exigence, the urgent need for this article, may be the most clear concept portrayed throughout this artifact of queer rhetoric. By the end of 1981 – the year in which the immune deficiency disease was “discovered” – there were 270 reported cases of the disease among gay men and of those cases, 121 individuals died.
The term AIDS was not used by the Center for Disease Control until September 1982.
By 1983, the disease continued to take it’s toll – now, not only on gay men but on women and infants, too. Kramer published his article in March 1983 – when there were 1,112 reported cases of the disease – at a time when urgency was the driving force that caused people to understand and help combat the disease.
His article was equal parts informative and persuasive; he gives understanding to a disease that, to many, was unfamiliar and shows the importance of combatting a disease that was taking thousands of lives from something many see as a medical epidemic.
Exigency was the force that prompted the writing and publication of this article, and many more at the time. The exigency spread beyond other gay men in the New York metropolitan area, but throughout the entire country no matter one’s sexual orientation.
Following the publication of this article, though not a direct response, Congress passed a bill that provided $12 million targeted for AIDS treatment and research. This bill came after hundreds more died from the illness that no one really understood but was killing masses of people throughout the United States.
1,112 and Counting 
The idea of a “silent killer” is definitely scary and could very well be thought of the AIDS epidemic. The fact so many people died and there was no real cure/scientific knowledge on the topic was incredible concerning at that time. I think your post connected the idea of exigency and the AIDS crisis perfectly due to the heightened nature of the problem and the urgency behind finding a solution. Looking at the rhetorical situation of the AIDS epidemic and how Kramer enlightens an audience on a topic that most were in the dark about will be a interesting subject.
An improvement for the site would be to maybe hyperlink to some AIDS statistics (to better visualize the epidemic) – I see that you did link to the CDC site, which is nice too.
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You did a really nice job describing what exigency was in your own words. I think you did a nice job in showing the urgency. I think your topic is very interesting because the AIDS epidemic was so big back then, and the stigmas it had created behind it. You did a good job in talking about and explaining what the exigency for this particular artifact was.
The only thing I would suggest is that the contrast between the bright red and so much white space is a lot. So maybe finding different colors could be more visually appealing.
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In this blog post, I found the facts that you provided most interesting. Having those interesting facts provided a clear justification of the exigency. I think you could have elaborated a little bit more on how the facts related to the exigency and there could have been a longer definition of exigency.
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I think that because there are so many common misconceptions about AIDS, proving the exigency explicitly is helpful. The rhetorical situation of this artifact will play a key role in how you choose to analyze it.
For the graphic quality of your website, the header image you are using is great. One thing that would add to an already great blog would be to provide an image on the about page to add visual interest to the artifact.
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It is a shame that Congress was slow to act against this terrible disease. Without exigency who knows how many lives could have been taken that have not been taken already. This disease does not discriminate and it is going to take a lot more effort to see change.
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I really liked the concept you went with, it would be very hard to have rhetoric and change if there was not exigency first. I also thought you did a very good job connecting facts to your argument, I feel like I learned a lot about the epidemic just by reading this post. It also kept me engaged with how this is connected with your artifact.
Some advice I would give is to maybe add some personal perspective in your blog, or maybe add another graphic or two? I think actually adding a chart with your numbers on it would help visualize how crazy your statistics are.
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I liked the way you pointed out the topic of Exigency of Aids within a society that was stereotyping towards gay men but in reality was a epidemic in all fronts. I feel that maybe a cool references of celebrities that were straight and had/have AIDS would make your final project very interesting and cool. For example the death of Eazy- E and the out coming of Magic Johnson would be very pivotal when discussing the bias of AIDS. For the most part I really like how you included a YouTube video as of now it is a very friendly site. It indeed looks like you’ve put work into it. But for maybe a small improvement,play around with the color scheme
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I really liked how you went so into depth about the exigency of the rhetorical situation. Your topic and artifact are very interesting to me, as we have not discussed many topics surrounding the AIDS epidemic of that time period. You did a great job at providing details in order to support your claim. A suggestion I have for you is to add some more personal views into your blog. I think that it would add some more flare to your already spectacular work.
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