Monday, March 31, 2014
Health. CARE. First. AID.
an ongoing discussion/moment of clarity.
words.
"The Obama Administration and its Democratic allies have made the task of promoting the A.C.A. more difficult through their own fecklessness. The law is still better known for the Web-site fiasco than for the benefits it has achieved. Three weeks ago, when President Obama pitched healthcare.gov to young adults on “Between Two Ferns,” Zach Galifianakis said, “Oh, yeah, I heard about that. That’s the thing that doesn’t work.” It was funny, sort of. Support for the A.C.A. remains low in opinion polls, thanks in part to “horror story” campaigns paid for by groups such as Americans for Prosperity. But, in a peculiar way, no politician, of any stripe, has incentives to tell the whole truth. Republicans prefer not to acknowledge any benefits at all. Some Democrats who voted for the law, particularly those up for reëlection, seem unable to acknowledge how much they still support it. It’s easier to focus on the parts that benefit middle-class voters—who tend to turn out at the polls, especially in midterm elections—and to elide the benefits to the poor, which are rarely politically advantageous.
But the core of the law is the guarantee of health care to the people who need it most. As the story of Medicaid illustrates, the hardest thing about programs to aid the poor is getting them started in the first place. Obamacare has now passed that hurdle."
THE NEW YORKER: Health Caring
words.
"The Obama Administration and its Democratic allies have made the task of promoting the A.C.A. more difficult through their own fecklessness. The law is still better known for the Web-site fiasco than for the benefits it has achieved. Three weeks ago, when President Obama pitched healthcare.gov to young adults on “Between Two Ferns,” Zach Galifianakis said, “Oh, yeah, I heard about that. That’s the thing that doesn’t work.” It was funny, sort of. Support for the A.C.A. remains low in opinion polls, thanks in part to “horror story” campaigns paid for by groups such as Americans for Prosperity. But, in a peculiar way, no politician, of any stripe, has incentives to tell the whole truth. Republicans prefer not to acknowledge any benefits at all. Some Democrats who voted for the law, particularly those up for reëlection, seem unable to acknowledge how much they still support it. It’s easier to focus on the parts that benefit middle-class voters—who tend to turn out at the polls, especially in midterm elections—and to elide the benefits to the poor, which are rarely politically advantageous.
But the core of the law is the guarantee of health care to the people who need it most. As the story of Medicaid illustrates, the hardest thing about programs to aid the poor is getting them started in the first place. Obamacare has now passed that hurdle."
THE NEW YORKER: Health Caring
Saturday, March 29, 2014
Thursday, March 27, 2014
metalocalypse.
words.
"...an even more fundamental factor in the declining share of working Americans is the technological automation that has eliminated millions of jobs and is poised to eliminate millions more.
...I doubt that the mass acquisition of creative and social skills is sufficient to meet this challenge. The way to deal with such a job apocalypse would begin with the very measures that we have failed to enact to combat the cyclical downturn that began in 2008: a massive government program to build and repair our infrastructure and to provide the preschool education and elder care that the nation needs, which would increase consumption and economic activity generally.
Eventually, however, as computers pick up more and more skills, we will have to embrace the necessity of redistributing wealth and income from the shrinking number of Americans who have sizable incomes from their investments or their work to the growing number of Americans who want work but can’t find it. That may or may not be socialism; certainly, it’s survival."
THE WASHINGTON POST: The coming job apocalypse
"...an even more fundamental factor in the declining share of working Americans is the technological automation that has eliminated millions of jobs and is poised to eliminate millions more.
...I doubt that the mass acquisition of creative and social skills is sufficient to meet this challenge. The way to deal with such a job apocalypse would begin with the very measures that we have failed to enact to combat the cyclical downturn that began in 2008: a massive government program to build and repair our infrastructure and to provide the preschool education and elder care that the nation needs, which would increase consumption and economic activity generally.
Eventually, however, as computers pick up more and more skills, we will have to embrace the necessity of redistributing wealth and income from the shrinking number of Americans who have sizable incomes from their investments or their work to the growing number of Americans who want work but can’t find it. That may or may not be socialism; certainly, it’s survival."
THE WASHINGTON POST: The coming job apocalypse
jerk ribs.
a moment of clarity.
for your consideration...
words.
"In the debate over economic inequality, most of the discussion is about new things the federal government should do to make the distribution of our society’s resources more even: raise the minimum wage, say, or impose higher tax rates on the rich. But what about getting Washington to stop some policies that skew after-tax income distribution upward?
...Many inhabitants of Blue America — progressive lawyers, health-care professionals, journalists and college professors — have raised their influential voices against the oil companies and Wall Street. They certainly have a point: Corporate tax breaks and the preferential treatment of capital gains are big sources of inequality in the tax code.
But if upscale progressives really want a more egalitarian America, their lifestyles will have to take a hit, too. (Incidentally, bigger houses tend to use more energy and produce more carbon emissions.) Tax subsidies for housing have enabled many a Blue American to renovate a Victorian, send a kid to riding camp or drive a hybrid SUV — and, painful though it may be to admit, to do so at the expense of everyone else"
THE WASHINGTON POST: Fixing one driver of inequality may hit close to home for some progressives
for your consideration...
words.
"In the debate over economic inequality, most of the discussion is about new things the federal government should do to make the distribution of our society’s resources more even: raise the minimum wage, say, or impose higher tax rates on the rich. But what about getting Washington to stop some policies that skew after-tax income distribution upward?
...Many inhabitants of Blue America — progressive lawyers, health-care professionals, journalists and college professors — have raised their influential voices against the oil companies and Wall Street. They certainly have a point: Corporate tax breaks and the preferential treatment of capital gains are big sources of inequality in the tax code.
But if upscale progressives really want a more egalitarian America, their lifestyles will have to take a hit, too. (Incidentally, bigger houses tend to use more energy and produce more carbon emissions.) Tax subsidies for housing have enabled many a Blue American to renovate a Victorian, send a kid to riding camp or drive a hybrid SUV — and, painful though it may be to admit, to do so at the expense of everyone else"
THE WASHINGTON POST: Fixing one driver of inequality may hit close to home for some progressives
hot topic.
an ongoing discussion/moment of clarity.
words.
"Most gay men already know that the more masculine you present in online dating profiles, the more interest you will attract. I’ve always known that, aside from being black, my feminine, flowing, chest-length locks were the greatest deterrent my own success, which is why I logged off altogether for a while. However, recently, I started wondering if the masculine vs. femme assumptions were true, so I signed on for a few weeks to conduct a little experiment. The results are pretty interesting—predictable, but still interesting.
I stopped looking for dates online more than a year ago because it’s just not a productive use of my time. My greatest strength is my personality, and I’m not very photogenic. Add that to the fact that black men are virtually invisible on online dating sites (unless you are in the top 5 percent of musculature and attractiveness) compared to white men (who can be completely average in every way and still fill a social calendar), and it became clear to me that looking for dates on the Internet was pointless for me, personally.
...Believe it or not, I didn’t come out of this experiment feeling bad about myself—just smarter about the way gay men (or perhaps men in general) place way too much emphasis on silly characteristics like beards and ballcaps (hint: that’s why you’re all still cranky and single).* And really, I don’t think having long hair itself is the big hang-up; it’s what my hair implies. Having long hair (especially for a black man) means you’re probably a bitchy dramatic queen that nobody wants to date. Even if the assumption isn’t that extreme, the underlying fear is “you spent too much time on your appearance and that’s not masculine.” That’s frustrating, of course, since stereotypical masculinity takes just as much work—we just don’t think of it that way. I remember chatting with this scruffy, fairly muscular guy with tattoos and chest hair and an Instagram full of masc pics; once we got to talking, he revealed his obsession with Beyoncé and said “yasss!” every other paragraph. But no matter—his picture is butch, so his dating life is always full."
SLATE: Butching Up Online: A Dating Experiment
words.
"Most gay men already know that the more masculine you present in online dating profiles, the more interest you will attract. I’ve always known that, aside from being black, my feminine, flowing, chest-length locks were the greatest deterrent my own success, which is why I logged off altogether for a while. However, recently, I started wondering if the masculine vs. femme assumptions were true, so I signed on for a few weeks to conduct a little experiment. The results are pretty interesting—predictable, but still interesting.
I stopped looking for dates online more than a year ago because it’s just not a productive use of my time. My greatest strength is my personality, and I’m not very photogenic. Add that to the fact that black men are virtually invisible on online dating sites (unless you are in the top 5 percent of musculature and attractiveness) compared to white men (who can be completely average in every way and still fill a social calendar), and it became clear to me that looking for dates on the Internet was pointless for me, personally.
...Believe it or not, I didn’t come out of this experiment feeling bad about myself—just smarter about the way gay men (or perhaps men in general) place way too much emphasis on silly characteristics like beards and ballcaps (hint: that’s why you’re all still cranky and single).* And really, I don’t think having long hair itself is the big hang-up; it’s what my hair implies. Having long hair (especially for a black man) means you’re probably a bitchy dramatic queen that nobody wants to date. Even if the assumption isn’t that extreme, the underlying fear is “you spent too much time on your appearance and that’s not masculine.” That’s frustrating, of course, since stereotypical masculinity takes just as much work—we just don’t think of it that way. I remember chatting with this scruffy, fairly muscular guy with tattoos and chest hair and an Instagram full of masc pics; once we got to talking, he revealed his obsession with Beyoncé and said “yasss!” every other paragraph. But no matter—his picture is butch, so his dating life is always full."
SLATE: Butching Up Online: A Dating Experiment
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
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