Not many items this morning. Been traveling and the endless game.
FRUM RESPONDS: The answer to all the questions I asked a week or so ago in the Wall Street Journal was provided by David Frum today. Well, I think it was. Here are some of my questions:
On what grounds do conservatives believe that discouraging responsibility is a good thing for one group in society? What other legal minority do they or would they treat this way? … What is the social conservative position on civil unions? What aspects of them can conservatives get behind? What details are they less convinced by?
Now see if you can find an answer to a single one of these questions in Frum’s piece. All you get is the argument that domestic partnerships, by creating “marriage-lite,” undermine the social status of marriage, and are therefore a bad idea. But that was the point I first made back in 1989! The answer is to give gay people marriage rights! But that, for reasons David doesn’t elaborate, is off the table. In fact, one of the main reasons we have all these marriage-lites at all is because conservatives refused to offer the real deal; and so others tried to create piece-meal efforts at reform. So we have, I think, an answer of sorts: no marriage rights and no domestic partnership rights. Better to keep a proportion of the population outside of all civil relationship norms than to integrate them in any way. One thing you notice right away: Frum seems uninterested in the fate of gay people, unconcerned about their plight, and doesn’t even try to address it. I agree that society as a whole has interests that are rightly part of this debate. But to accord the lives of gay citizens no standing in this debate – to dismiss them as irrelevant as a premise – is really stretching it, I think. Is it really not worth even an aside to nod toward their concerns? Or do we matter that little?
PRICELINE HELL: Strictly speaking, it’s my fault. I booked a five-day hotel room stay in New York City for a bunch of commitments, one of which fell through. So having paid over $1000 in advance through Priceline.com, I delayed my trip by a day. But I didn’t call the hotel to let them know I’d be a day late, assuming I’d have to absorb the extra day’s cost, but still had a booking for four days. (No, free-lance bloggers do not have secretaries and we can be absent-minded.) So I called up yesterday morning to confirm the room for the remaining nights. They were sold out. My no-show allowed them to cancel the entire reservation. Would they refund the remainder? Nope. If my flight had been canceled, I might have had a chance, but I couldn’t keep that pretense up. The hotel told me I should call Priceline. I did. They said that my no-show invalidated everything; that, since it was my fault, they had no obligation to find me any other rooms; and I should have read the fine print. So they get over $1000 for nothing; and they have no obligation to help out at all. The woman on the phone, I swear, was almost smirking. “Sucker!” was the tone. My trip has been as jinxed as a Cubs game so far, so I took the turn of events with a certain magnanimity. The BF and I are on some good friends’ couch tonight. It’s not been a great week for him. One lesson: if you use a service like Priceline, remember to be vigilant. It’s a great idea but the profit margin is obviously highly correlated with suckers and incompetents like me.
The Dish 