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Errand Into The Maze

So, the end of the year is upon us... upon me. And naively, I've decided to opt for the cliche of a fresh start.

The last couple of years have been kind of rough, something I've only generally alluded to, in passing, when I've had time to write. Baring my soul, my personal difficulties, sharing deep feelings.. these things are, oddly (I suppose), not why I write. It stems, I've said before, from my training as a writer, which is to avoid a lot of "I" or "me," try to stand apart from your subjects, make your observations based on concrete assessments, rather than feelings. Then too, there's my upbringing, which I tend to think of as pretty traditional, Western European values. In this age of oversharing, I like standing for old fashioned notions about not putting one's business out on the street, or using a format like a blog to settle personal scores.

But still, this has been a rough year. And I resolved, as part of making a fresh start, to try and unpack and expalin some (at least) of what happened and why, or at least my take on the why of it.

For me, a lot of the upheaval took place as I committed myself, with some trepidation, to pursuing an upward career path at Starbucks. I am, by nature, ambitious and somewhat driven - which is odd, as a Pisces and I think odd to people who don't know me well - and I like to feel I am headed toward a goal, not just languishing. I can, and I will, say that my ambition in a corporate setting varies, and a good bit of my enthusiasm may not so much have been mine as that of others, especially my logtime manager, who I consider a mentor and friend. I'm not so sure, ever that I wanted to be in management quite as much as she wanted it for me.

Still, I made a commitment and I did my best to see it through. And in doing so, I settled on some compromises: obviously, I would have to write less. My hours at work increased, as did my responsibilities, and (again, being ambitious) I know the politics of getting ahead - appear enthusiastic, volunteer, do extra, come early and stay late. And, sincerely, I was enthusiastic. I made the commitment, and I gave the extra time, quite willingly.

My single minded focus also meant some trade-offs socially and interpersonally; less time with friends, less direct contact, less free time. I saw fewer movies. Friends who were more distant, physically or emotionally (or both) became more distant still. I lost touch with people, and in some sense, I'm sure I lost patience - with others, with politics, with myself. Cut to the chase, make a point. Have a point. Don't waste my time.

On paper, things went well for the career plan - I was promoted, I grew and developed in many ways. I became a better manager of people, better able to supervise, and retain my sensitivity. I mastered many things I didn't think possible, and reoriented my thinking and expectations for myself and others day to day at work. There are a lot of positives to see over this experience, and they are the reasons I don't regret my choices. What I did was necessary, and the positive changes were worth a lot of the pain. Just not all of the pain.

For me, the unfortunate turn with my promotion was being thrown into a new, unfamiliar setting, one which, I quickly came to realize was simply "not a good fit for me." It's an oblique, politically correct phrase, I know, but I like its precise imprecision. It wasn't one thing, one person, one event. It was, simply, the totality of things - a bad commute, bad group dynamics, difficult working relationships, no sense of personal connection, no feeling  of being "a part of" a new team. All the things that I loved about my job - the camaraderie, the shared sense of accomplishments, the joy of it - all of it seemed to vanish. I dreaded going. I missed people. I felt like I was losing my friends, and a sense of myself.

And, truthfully, I missed writing. I missed critical writing most, the reviews of films, and TV and arts and the culture. But I missed the daily exercise of it, the sense I had while blogging near daily that my writing was strong and growing. I write most (and best) because I love the shaping of ideas with words. Without that... I have very little.

So I made a choice - not without some consultation and guidance - and decided, as they say, to "step back." Decisions like that, I must say, are remarkably freeing, because they are seen by so many as so unconventional. One of the happiest immediate results I got was a sense of being able to speak for myself, choose for myself, listen to my own inner voice. Few people understand life choices that don't, first, have to do with getting more - more money, more power, more stuff. That's never been my equation, for better and worse. I like to start by figuring out what makes one happy, and working out form there. More happiness, more peace of mind... amazing things can flow when these are in place.

Change is hard, and uncomfortable. I cannot just "go back to how things were." Things are different now, trying to restart this blog is hard, harder than it was before. Resuming regular writing doesn't just happen. It, too, is work. I still have connetcions to build and rebuild, a support system to strengthen and reset. Some of my closest relationships have been entirely (and even irrepairably) changed, and as sad as that was, I still tend to think it necessary and, in some sense, inevitable. We grow, we change, we grow apart. I have come to see that the strongest friendships, the strongest personal bonds aren't about how we stay the same; it's how people adapt to changes in one another. The more flexible, the more opions exist as a result. And then too, I've learned that it's okay to say goodbye to relationships that just don't give you the things you need. What made sense once, at one point in time, may not make sense anymore. And that's okay.

Of course... I'm generalizing, taking myself out of it, trying not to get too personal, too wound up in the feelings or the specific personalities. That's me, what I say and how I say it. I don't regret the past couple of years, but as I thought about it, as I started on a "fresh start," I liked the idea of ending an "errand into the maze". I chased down a lot of blind alleys, tried to work out a set of puzzles, ran myself ragged at times... and now, I'm pretty much letting that errand, and that maze, go. Time to move on, move forward, do more of what I love and make more time for my truer passions. And we'll see what develops. That's the story I'm planning to tell, anyway.

Sandy Hook, And The Point Where Things Tipped

The sense of a tectonic shift on gun controls in the US strikes me as a surprising result of the shooting in Connecticut, mostly in a "why this one" sense. I mean, I think we all get that the depth of this tragedy is beyond the others - the number of kids, in an elementary school, obviously - but to suggest that this one is somehow "worse than the others" is to forget how bad what came before really was, and sets up a kind of hierarchy I'm loath to endorse.

But something shifted, and I'm fascinated at the cultural analysis. It's more than the kids. Other aspects of this tragedy, and its timing, have brought the usual defenders of absolute gun rights up short; there's a surprising silence, and an even more surprising amount of grudging acquiescence that staus quo on guns will simply be unaaceptable.

Part of what's tipped, I think, is location, in several senses; most obviously, this happened in the northeast, the bastion of liberals these days, as opposed to the recent examples in, say, Colorado or Arizona. And it suggests that the reactions of shock and horror were tempered by a sense, there, that gun culture is more commonly accepted. In the suburbs surrounding New York City, you get a lot (lot) less of that. And that's repeated along the coast, and coastal cities, from Maine to Maryland.

But I think one other locational aspect is that when you go north or west of the Eastern seaboard, one can forget how un-urban things get, real fast. Here in Northern Westchester, things get clear a mile or two out of town, especially at night: houses in the woods, well removed from bright lights and big cities, and big city notions of all sorts.  On one hand, as many commentators have noted, there's a sense of a suburban idylll being deeply disturbed; on the other, Newtown may really be more of an example of exurban, rather than suburban, life, where people really live out in the country, well away from an urban core. That's why the revelations of a survivalist, gun-heavy culture in rural CT may be less surprising than they seem at first blush. Anyone who's driven Route 84 across central Connecticut (and mid-Hudson Valley New York, for that matter) can attest to the odd lines between developed suburbs and truly rural country. And that lifestyle is not so far removed from other rural, exurban existences around cities South and West.

My point is that the tipping point here may not really about northeastern liberals and a sudden "here in our backyard" moment; no one needed to convince most liberals (at least the ones I know and experience round these parts, and in my lifetime) about the need for more gun regulation. And while some have pointed to this tragedy as another "urban vs. rural" tension, I think the real tipping point is that this happened in a semi-rural area which has deeply shaken the "can't happen in our suburban idyll" notions of many exurban dwellers, especailly (I'd bet), women. When the shootings happened in movie theaters and shopping malls (and one did, let's recall, in Newport California, less than 12 hours later), it was easy to separate those areas and activities from home. Strip malls may be dicey... but once you get off the main road and back to your neighborhood enclave.... it's all ok. When the shooting happens in the local area elementary school... that last illusion is shattered. Population density, like other demographic markers, may be the real key here. It's getting harder to find  a place to feel safe, even away from others. And that's a tipping point about how closely we want to manage the gun culture.

It's an interesting moment, this shift on guns; like a number of shifts in popular perception lately, I think politicians are playing catch-up with a public that's moved far and fast. That sense of catching up, combined with short memories, may not bode well for sweeping changes, or even modest incremental ones, on guns. But our next conversation on guns won't be like the least 20 years or so, I don't think. And still, we do have the problems around mental health, which are more complicated, and in many ways worse. And, as I've long suspected, it will be easier to focus on the guns and "do something" about them, than to look long and hard at how we deal with deeply disturbed people, especially disturbed young men. I don't think a demographic shift will fix that problem; that only comes when we develop more of a will to tackle the hard stuff. If ever.

 

Being Human

As a writer, I try not to repeat posts; I actually think this is a flaw, probably, because repetition provides a kind of consistency. You become the writer who, everyone knows, writes about "this," when you repeat yourself. But I find repetition boring, and really, I think, once I've said something, what else is there to say?

It was the shooting at Virginia Tech that was my moment on mass shootings. I said what I needed to say, and since then, I've been surprised at how, as shootings happen again and again, much of what I wrote then basically holds. There's an argument that we become inured to violence, but I find it's not the horror and sadness that goes away; it's the sense that we will re-embark on the same conversation we have, over and over in the aftermath. 

For me that conversation starts not with the guns, but with the mental illness. Over and over, these young men with serious illnesses and disabilities wind up committing astonishing acts of violence, yet we either throw up our hands, or say, "never mind that, the problem is guns." There is a gun problem to be sure; but the disastrous state of mental health services and the stigmas around dealing with mental illness is so essential to the state we're in, I can hardly breathe when I hear these things. "How did this happen?" people wail, each time. And each time, we discover, sadly, that there were people who did know, people who saw a disturbed person in need of help, and watched a system filled with cracks fail them. Over and over. And over. And over.

And yet... of course, the problem is guns. Guns that shoot multiple shots in a second, rounds and rounds of bullets fired in seconds (why don't we regulate and tax the bullets?). Clearly, at least some (and yes, I agree, much) of this stuff is madness. Gun controls will not stop these incidents... but lord, let's start somewhere and try to do something. The alternative, as we keep seeing, is chaos.

What was so weird about Friday, to me, was how the totality of the event became clear in degrees, even in the face of a sloppy reporting situation that may be one of the most embarrassing exercises in recent journalism (the misinformation and untruths bandied about all day Friday were honestly staggering). By the time President Obama spoke, the enormity of the event was unavoidable. So many children, so much death... so little meaning or point. Even a President noted for his coolness and near stoicism, could not fail to weep in public.

As Americans, our moments of collective connection in these splintered times is difficult, but a slow news week, difficult times and a truly horrific event brought us together as few things could. The killing of children, in a school, is inhuman. It defies every sense we have of being a human society. And, just for a minute, perhaps, we cut through the clutter of left and right and us and them, and all that, and for a minute we were all, just, human. And maybe, if we stick with being human for a bit... we can do something about this. I don't entirely believe this myself, but all this crying ought to result in something, shouldn't it?

 

The Serious Post About Marriage Equality And The Supreme Court

The week of dithering by the Supreme Court was, to me, way more fascinating than the ultimate decision to take the cases on marriage equality. For a minute there, it really looked as if they were going to avoid the whole thing, which in itself would have been a pretty resounding win for the forces for marriage equality.

I also used to say, years ago, that DOMA was doomed once gays had the right to marry, for one of two reasons, divorces or taxes. The public may not like gays or disapprove of our life choices... but taxes and divorce are legal matters that need clear standards. And here we are, where the Supreme Court is hearing a tax case that will likely eviscerate DOMA.

That case is about a couple who got married in Canada where the surviving partner faced a huge tax bill (er, "death tax"? anyone?) where spouses are normally exempt. That case, as I long suspected, is probably a slam dunk on the merits, but like the Prop 8 case, the complication here is that the Supreme Court may never have to decide the underlying issue, because the appeal is being brought by Republicans in Congress. The Obama Administration, if we'll recall, already announced that based on other decisions where DOMA was ruled unconstitutional, the Solicitor General does not defend DOMA anymore. That, in itself, is an interesting question without a lot of settled law - if the Executive Branch refuses to defend a law it doesn't like, does Congress have the ability to do that instead? And again, that decision, even one in favor of Congress, wouldn't necessarily help DOMA - it's easy to see a split verdict that says, oh 7-2 (Breyer, Sotomayor) or 6-3 (plus Ginsburg) that Congress can appeal a decision of a law they passed, but then says 5-4 (the liberals, plus Kennedy) or 6-3 (plus Roberts) that DOMA violates the 14th Amendment.

The Prop 8 case is even messier, since the State of California "lost" the original case. In fact California (under Jerry Brown) never wanted to defend Prop 8, but sent a team of the Proposition's supporters as their stand-ins, who promptly lost. The appeal of the case comes from those proponents of the originial proposition, and it is indeed unclear whether they have any right to appeal a decision that is actually aimed at the state. This is where the Supreme Court could rule that the appeal should never have happened... meaning the original ruling against Prop 8 would stand; or they could give the proponents standing, and overrule the 9th Circuit and the District Court.... or they could uphold all the decisions.

This, too, leads to intersting questions about standing... but I have a hunch that  the Court would be happy not to rule on Prop 8 and try to fight what does indeed seem to be a turning tide of supprt for gay people. What seems even clearer, as I joked before, is that the "one man, one woman" nonsense will most likely be relegated to some spirited dissenting opinion from Scalia or Alito. 

And though many Court watchers brought up less than salient examples of Brown vs. Board of Education and Roe vs. Wade, the real bellweather on this will be Loving vs. Virginia, the 1967 case that ended state bans on interracial marriages, and (my guess) Heart of Atlanta Motel vs. United States. Loving, of course, says that states can't just refuse couples the right to marry... but Heart of Atlanta is a big case on interstate commerce, that people can cross state lines and expect similar treatment. My guess is that the combination of the two is where gay marriage will, one day if not this day, wind up being upheld.

But of course, gay people could lose all of this. The right wing might prevail, and at least claim a narrow victory that would extend this fight for a few years more. As much as I think some people are deeply invested in winning, I don't know that a lot of gay people - certainly around my age or older - harbor a lot of illusions here. This could all go very badly, and if it does, we'll just have to start our work from wherever we end up. But the reason we can live with the bad outcome, as we have all along, is because marriage equality is simply common sense. And it may take the law a while to catch up to common sense... but I don't think it will be much longer.

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I was hesitating to continue in this vein, but this week was so full of gay marriage news: the people registering to marry in Washington state (insert joke here about using now legal pot, too), and the Supreme Court dithering for days about whether to take any gay marriage cases, and then at the final minute taking the DOMA case and the Prop 8 case... well, I think we can keep joking about who is going to marry whose boyfriends or girlfriends, now, can't we?

Because it's funny... until Antonin Scalia says marriage is between a man and a woman. And then it's not... although I think if he does that in an opinion, it will basically be hilarious.

Anyway, here are the responses from women, straight and gay. Links to the originals below.

 

 

 

 

 

DeMinted

Elections have consequences; that's the main lesson I guess we can take away from Jim DeMint's decision to flee the Senate and run the Heritage Foundation. Like most freely chosen job switches, DeMint's decision can be seen in 2 ways, I think: a comment on where he's leaving, or a sign of where he's going.

Lots of people, naturally focused on his leaving the Senate; though I think early reads on it missed the obvious fact that DeMint is leaving largely because the GOP lost, and for DeMint's purposes, lost huge. DeMint's been, in many ways, the Most Senior Elected Spokesman of the Tea Party movement, and his backing has been a 50/50 kiss of death. From Sarah Palin to Christine O'Donnell in Delaware to Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, DeMint's been a big proponent of "replacing RINOs", a discussion that's all but meaningless to most liberals. But that RINO thing is a big deal to conservatives, and their systematic housecleaning of the GOP goes a long way to explaining the Republican crack-up (and, by extension, the shape and size of the GOP problems since 2006, or more likely 2004).

DeMint will not be especially missed; from Lindsay Graham to Mitch McConnell, it was mostly "so long, and thanks for... er, nothing." But his fleeing speaks volumes to the fact that DeMint is in some ways more of a realist than his colleagues - hence his rush to embace a Tea Party movement I'm not convinced even he entirely likes - and gets that, for now anyway, it's not going to be much fun to be a Republican in elected office. DeMint may be a conservative true believer, but if he thought he could really effectively push conservatism in government, he'd have stayed. At the same time, DeMint's canary in the coal mine move does offer some idea of how Republicans could pull it together more: getting rid of gadfly outliers (DeMint was no great shakes as an actual legislator) and drawing some lines about unacceptable extremes remains, to my mind, the base starting point of any serious Republican effort to regain lost ground.

At the same time, it's even more interesting to contemplate DeMint's rush to run Heritage. Up until yesterday, I don't think anyone knew or cared who was actually running Heritage, outside of Washington's right wing elite, and even there, Heritage seemed sort of an afterthought. There's more cachet at the top of the right wing think tank heap for the American Enterpirse Institute, and even though the Cato Institute is in a bit of a mess, they too have a higher profile and more of a specific (libertarian) voice.

This move, it strikes me, is about raising Heritgae's profile and its ability to make the news cycle with bomb throwing quotes; DeMint is not an especially serious ideas guy, not someone who puts the "think" in "think tank." He is, on the other hand, popular with Rush and Hannity and Mark Levin and the other Demi-Gods of talk radio, and an easy booking for Fox News, sure to be quoted and talked about (and, for now, a bigger star than the rest of the room at Heritage). Remaking Heritage into a louder, less thoughtful, angrier thing may well be the kind of brand definition the place needs. How that will help conservatives be more impactful or change the national conversation, I think, is harder to fathom.

DeMint and the Board of Heritage may be right that DeMint can resahpe the place into something more winning (even if, like, oh, say, President Obama, DeMint has essentially no executive experience). But from here, it's hard to see how simply being louder and more visible, angrier and more right wing helps either Heritage or the conservative movement in the long run, absent interesting ideas and a sense of renewed energy and fresh perspectives. Still DeMint was probably right to flee the Senate now, cash in and join the conservative money circuit while the getting is good. I'd just say the wise move might be to bank that cash before the far right gets seriously marginalized and cut off. I mean, the idea that  conservativism, done louder will somehow seem more winning is just... demented.

Men On The Net(Works)

I am truly embarrassed to admit this, but I used to keep this (especially exhaustive) list of men I found attractive in a little notebook I kept hidden in my room. After I came out, the point of this lst was much more clear; but at first, you know, it was just an interesting diversion.

Apparently... I'm not alone in this: Via World of Wonder, James St. James directs us to Matthew Rettemund's exhaustive list of the 50 hottest men on television. This makes perfect sense since James, Matthew, me, and the rest of my gay generation kind of all kept this list, with many of the same men on it. I'm not sure it's the same for the kids these days, but that moment of recognition, that "you thought he was sexy too?" conversation was like a feminist click of "I'm not crazy" and "I finally fit in with the others."  It was not just, simply, the leering and lust... but goodness, aren't they talented?

Rettemund (who has the "nice work if you can get it" of being Professionally Gay) covers pretty much all the bases, and does a nice job of filtering in some of the more recent examples to a list that he's clearly been caring about for years. I don't make a physical list anymore (or even an Excel soreadsheet)... but one does, you know, keep track. And these days, when every TV show has that "hot guy who drips sexy" role, that isn't always easy.  Thank Goddess for IMDB.

A lot of this fascination can be traced back to the late seventies, when increasing gay visibility made frank depiction and interest in male beauty less of a social taboo (and the seventies were pretty sex-mad, anyway). Rettemund covers most of the bases - though he misses, most egregiously, Parker Stevenson and Shaun Cassidy of The Hardy Boys - with a little heavy emphasis on youth, even for my tastes. I'm not sure Blair Underwood is am especially brave choice, either. But Rettemund does capture, in pictures, that glorious moment when Tony Danza and John Schneider were as hot as street trade (and don't think they didn't know it).

One can nitpick this sort of thing to death (shortlist: Ian Somerhalder, Paul Wesley, Cam Gigandet, No Dawson's Creek?, Patrick Dempsey, Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki... I mean, jeez), and that's without diving deeply into daytime soaps (he does namecheck Brian Bloom!), but this list will serve as a fine, fresh start. And Rettemund rescues the show that nearly every gay man can remember even if the show was barely watched: the CW's Summerland, where the male beauty was simply freaking ridonkulous. If nothing else... thank you for Ryan Kwanten!

Oh, and yes, this is just TV. Film is a different story altogether. And yes, this is really gay, too. But Betty, how could I resist? And hey.... Merry Christmas!

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The Beginning Of The End: 2012 Is A Worst Song Ever Treasure Trove

End of year compiling has just begun, and I want in on the madness. Even for a year of light blogging, I got in a good bit of observations for Worst Song Ever... and lo and behold, my choices made the Top of the Pops. Via Jezebel, it seems Spotify (the world's worst App, from what I can tell; I finally had to delete it becaue apparently it won't run if you don't Facebook) has published their top song requests of the year. And.... I rest my case, since "overplayed" is a big piece of the Worst Song Rules. 

(Also, I rest my case about Spotify.)

Anyway, the list:

• 1. Gotye featuring Kimbra — "Somebody That I Used to Know"
• 2. Carly Rae Jepsen — "Call Me Maybe"
• 3. Fun. featuring Janelle Monáe — "We Are Young"
• 4. Flo Rida — "Whistle"
• 5. Flo Rida featuring Sia — "Wild Ones"
• 6. Train — "Drive By"
• 7. Nicki Minaj — "Starships"
• 8. Maroon 5 featuring Wiz Khalifa — "Payphone"
• 9. David Guetta featuring Sia — "Titanium"
• 10. Loreen — "Euphoria"

Yes, 4 of the 10 already made my list this year. Of the others, I would put both Flo Rida songs on the list... but I apparently now Hate All Flo Rida, which means it doesn't count. Whistle and Wild One are but two atrocious station changing examples.  Similarly, I'm not sure which David Guetta assemblage is "Titanium", but Guetta's diluted himself into a cartoon, my opinion (and PS, how does Sia become the go-to nobody for these things?). In any case, I can't dis Carly Rae Jepsen, and Gotye was my first big fave of this year. So maybe I have a little mass taste. But just a little.

Oh, and just to sum up this year in all its (painful) pop misery, one of those really nifty "mashups" of... well, everything.

  

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Nothing From Nothing Leaves Nothing

One of the better bitter pills the right has had to swallow as a result of the election is that "Repeal Obamacare" was pretty soundly rejected as a rallying cry. The implementation of the Affordable Care Act continues, and conservatives are scrambling to try and figure out ways to revive their opposition and paint Obamacare as terrible, yet again.

Although I've never been thrilled with the ACA, or its organizing principle - that is, codifying the employer based health insurance system we have, and doubling down on it - I think we're obliged to see how it plays out. As I've said, I remain convinced that the real looming disaster in implementing the ACA is in Medicaid and the problems with expanding that program to everyone up to 133% of the poverty line, but the crunch time for that is probably months (though months, and not years) away.

Right now, the real developments in health insurance have to do both with the establishment of the "exchanges" - health insurance markets in every state that will help freelancers and small business employees get more affordable coverage, in theory - and seeing how employers react to new requirements for offering coverage.

What's interesting to me is that conservatives have settled on "outrage" and sympathy for an odd group of employers - midsize franchisees of chain restaurants like Applebee's and TGI Friday's. It's fascinating because the chains are frantic about the costs of offering insurance to wait staff and kitchen help, and because conservatives are trying to stake a "pro-business" claim by supporting the businesses in their whining about having to provide health insuarnce to workers. 

In a similar vein came news this weekend that Wal-Mart (naturally) has decided to set 30 hours as the lower limit for insurance for its workers, provoking (naturally) new howls about how Wal-Mart pushes its workers onto welfare, or in this case, into the Exchnages, rather than take its own responsibility seriously.

The inetersting thing to me is that these stories are two sides of the same coin, and a reminder why the ACA, or some solution was needed - it's service workers in these semi-part-time jobs in these shadow fields of endeavor who have the hardest time accessing affordable health care. Restaurants have notoriously refused to pay decent wages, never mind benefits, to workers. And while wait staff - especially in top boites - can survive and even thrive on tips, the same is not the case for kitchen workers and support staff. Wal-Mart, too in indicative of a problem (especially pervasive in retail and other service work) that doesn't actually have a good answer: making insurance available to part time workers is a laudable goal... but where is the reasonable point to draw a line in regards to hours worked?

I work for a company that - for now - offers a pretty full benefit package to workers starting at 20 hours a week (it's a little more complicated, but basically this). Wal-Mart probably deserves some scorn for going with 30, rather than a more inclusive number like even 25, but any number will serve to keep some workers out of the pool. And force the into other choices.

It's easy to lambaste these business owners for trying to limit coverage, but I tend to be heartened by the reverse predicament: that the ACA has forced these notoriously cheap employers to provide at least some sort of basic health care coverage to their full time staff. The threats of layoffs and cuts to hours may happen, but these are business people who know enough to know that providing worse service will not help the bottom line. Wal Mart can run on a small crew... but it does need bodies at registers and manning the floors. And if the net result is fewer people working more hours... than we may have broken an especially bad model that was good for business, but terrible for workers looking for a living wage and benefits.

But liberals should see the arnings in all of this. First, as much we'd like it to be otherwise, these businesses have to make choices about costs and expenses against how much money they can make doing business. Less profit will force other choices. Raising prices will affect who comes and how they spend. Each equation comes with a trade off. And for workers, we shouldn't make progress for some the enemy of good for all. More coverage, even for only a subset of these workers, is itself a vast improvement.

A lot of this, though, will come back to those exchanges, and by extension to these questions of how and how well the Medicaid expansion is done. Businesses, in their plans, will be heloing to, in some ways, enhance the division between the "working poor" - those who have the jobs and the willingness to do the long hours - and a new tier of people, just under them, who choose or are pushed into situations with some hard choices and harsh realities. Will the exchanges and Medicaid provide good coverage (and if the Exchanges are that good... will employers simply push their workers onto them?) , or do they become, between them, insurers of last resort for those with the least income and the fewest choices? That question could have a painful answer, but if we're trying to decide whether a bit of something is better than nothing... well, I'd rather not have nothing.

The Straight Guy Response

Via Towleroad, the answer I was seeking:

 

Personally, as with the "gay guys will marry your girlfriends", I find the hilarity kinds of overcomes the dopey, underlying sexism of the argument. And I find, as a gay man of a certain age, that both sides of this "debate" kind of jibe with the way life is now - funny gay guys who don't see every straight man as a potential boyfriend, and straight men who aren't nearly as uptight about gays (or gay seeming stuff like a fashion sense) as we were led to believe. I remember the straight friend at my last company who said, with heartfelt assurance, that he'd "totally be my wingman" in a gay bar... and the layers of assumptions and prejudices I had to put away as a result. I don't think "we'll marry your girlfriends" is a good or realistic plan... but heck, even threats like that can start a dialogue. And isn't that a good thing?

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We Will Marry The Crap Out Of Them

Straight Guys Respond to Gay Guys Marrying Their Girls Video

Straight guys respond to gay guys' threat to marry their girlfriends: Marry them, please (humor)