Rules of Engagement.

I messaged my friend Mark, "Have I told you how much I appreciate you?"  I haven't heard back from him yet, but I really do, and the reason makes me sad and a bit frustrated.

Mark and my best friend from high school, Jeff, were a trio in my early college years.  Since then, we've gone separate ways.  Jeff was around our home town for a long time into my adulthood, but about a decade ago he moved to a small town on the other side of the state, and my only contact with him is via Facebook, and even that is rare.  Mark moved to Chicago, and only recently moved back to a town about an hour away.  I haven't seen him in nearly 30 years, but we talk on Facebook frequently.

Mark and Jeff are both FOX-style consevatives, and I'm... not.  That makes for some good conversation, but only between Mark and me.  I've learned from past experience that that Jeff is not so easy to engage, and that frustrates me.  I'd like to be able to have an opposing opinion without being unfriended, but I'm afraid to test the boundaries for fear of never hearing from him again.

Today, Mark posted a link to an article about a pair of photographers who had declined to photograph a gay wedding based on their Christian beliefs, and were subsequently sued.  The photographers were "found guilty and ordered to pay thousands of dollars in fines."  The slant of the article was that the religious liberties of the photographers were being violated, and, y'know, dictatorships, coersion, authoritarianism, and other hyperbolic language.  (Side note:  the other point of view was presented without hyperbole.  For an article with the other point of view, click here.)

The post got the following comments:



 My first comment was a Biblical reference, to Luke 16:18.  I'm sure Mark is familiar with the passage, but either he missed my point, or he was being deliberately obtuse to make his own point, which is acceptable. However, building it around the archaic idea of a "gay gene" is a bit odd, so I think his point failed.  Also, one does not become an adulterer until one commits adultery, whereas one is gay or straight regardless of whether one has engaged in any sexual activity at all, so that comparison failed as well.

My own point was that if the couple's refusal to work with a gay couple was really based in moral conviction, then they should also refuse to work with couples marrying a second spouse, and for that matter, any couple engaged in amarital sexual relations.  Otherwise, they're just using their religion as an excuse to express a personal predjudice.

Jeff's last comment was the one that got in my head, however.  What he said is something he fervently believes.  I find it utterly ridiculous, and I was mentally trying to choose between a couple of snarky responses:

• Oh yes.  The "L" word.  I'd forgotten about that.  That's terribly important.
• That's funny.  That's exactly what liberals think of conservatives.

But it's Jeff, not Mark, and I can't say anything.  That makes me sad.  And it makes me appreciate Mark.

The Thaddus Factor

"So, ask the following question: how is it that many Americans with preexisting conditions have health insurance now? The immediate answer is, they get it from their employers. But why do employers do that? Well, employment-based health insurance is tax-advantaged: it’s a benefit employers can provide that isn’t counted as taxable income, which makes it better, in some cases, than offering higher wages instead.
But for company health plans to receive this tax-advantaged status, they have to obey ERISA rules, which essentially require that the same benefits be made available to all full-time employees — no discrimination based on health history, and you can’t provide benefits only to your highest-paid workers. So employer-based insurance is, when you come down to it, a lot like Obamacare, with enforced non-discrimination and a fair bit of subsidization of less-well-paid workers.
Now comes Karl Rove, and his big idea is to make the tax break on health coverage available to everyone, not just beneficiaries of employer plans. Great! Now employers can say “Here, we’ll eliminate your coverage, but we’ll pay you more, and you can use the money to buy tax-deductible insurance on your own!” Except that employees with preexisting conditions won’t find insurers willing to offer them affordable coverage — oh, and lower-paid workers won’t be able to afford coverage even if they’re healthy." -PK

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It's true that under the preferred Republican system -- the U.S. system before the Affordable Care Act became law -- if you were uninsured and get sick, you could probably find public hospitals that would provide treatment.
It is, however, extremely expensive to treat patients this way. It's far cheaper -- and more medically effective -- to pay for preventative care so that people don't have to wait for a medical emergency to seek treatment.
For that matter, when sick people with no insurance go to the E.R. for care, they often can't afford to pay their bills. Those costs are ultimately spread around to everyone else -- effectively creating the most inefficient system of socialized medicine ever devised.
Indeed, since hospitals can't treat sick patients for free, the bills can bankrupt those who get sick, and the costs are still passed on to everyone else.
But wait, there's more.  For those with chronic ailments, DeMint's position is laughable -- is anyone going to stop by the emergency room for chemotherapy or diabetes treatments?
The reality is plain for anyone who cares: Americans die because they lack basic coverage. The Republican plan to deal with this national scourge doesn't exist -- the plan is to destroy what took generations to approve, and then hope for the best.
Obamacare's critics are offering a cruel joke, and little else. -Steve Benin

With Apologies to Fats Waller

♫ I'm gonna sit right down and text myself a message
And make believe it came from you.
I'm gonna type words oh so sweet
They're gonna knock me off my feet.
Emoticons at the bottom,
I'll be glad I got 'em....
I'm gonna colon parenthesi and say, "I hope you're feelin' better,"

And close with less than three the way you do.
I'm gonna sit right down and text myself a message
And make believe it came from you. ♫

The Real Question

"If Obamacare were really as horrible as right-wing activists and lawmakers claim, shouldn't it be easier to attack the law without making stuff up? Wouldn't conservatives be eager to simply give people the truth, rather than resort to ugly demagoguery?"  - Steve Benin

From the Bad Husband File

Gaby doesn't usually ask me my opinion about housekeeping, but tonight he came to me while I was sitting at my computer and asked me whether he should mow the lawn, do the dishes, or bathe the dogs. I considered the question momentarily. I would be fixing dinner starting at 9:00, so the dishes would need to be done by then. At the time he asked, there was plenty of time to bathe the dogs before doing the dishes. The lawn could be put off till tomorrow. So I told him, "Dogs first, then the dishes." Then I went back to my Words With Friends game.
About 7:40, I got in the shower so that that would be done before Big Brother came on at 8:00. By the time the show started, I was dressed for work. As I watched the show, I was vaguely aware of the sound of the lawn mower. When Fritz the dog was let in the house, I noticed that he hadn't been bathed. I briefly wondered about it, but this wouldn't have been the first time Gaby asked my advice about something and then did something else. Oh, well. As long as he gets the dishes done.
After Big Brother, I got on Facebook to discuss the show with a couple of friends. It was an amusing conversation, and when Gaby came in the door, I shared a bit of it with him. He said, "You know, you could have watched the show in the studio while you were bathing the dogs."

I suddenly realized that my interpretation of the initial conversation was ALL wrong.

I also realized I was in the doghouse.

He went on to complain that I had been sitting in front of the computer all day doing nothing, and that it wasn't like I'd been to busy to help when he asked. Which is true; I'd been practially inert in the whole five and half hours I'd been awake. And worse, I'd been entirely self-absorbed and had not paid any attention to what he was doing at all.
So how do I fix this? Ideally, I would fly around the world in a westerly direction so fast that I would actually cause the earth to rotate backward and thereby turn back time and correct my mistake before it happened. But that seemed impractical.
But I still had more than an hour before I had to go to work, so I figured that if I went and got dinner at, say, Subway, and then washed the dishes before and after I ate, that should at least get one job done. So that's what I did. And it worked out.

I still need to do the two fleabags, but that'll have to wait till tomorrow.