Month: June 2012

Guess who sent me an email?

A recent poll asked what Obama and Congress should do about the healthcare system if Obamacare is ruled unconstitutional. Ed Kilgore summarizes the results:

19% said “leave the health care system as it is,” and 77% said “start work on a new health care reform bill.” That’s not surprising when you think about it. Of the 40-60% of Americans who express opposition to “ObamaCare” in one form or another, probably a fourth oppose it because it’s not single payer, and half the rest support all the individual components of ACA but either don’t understand it, don’t trust the government to implement it correctly, and/or have bought some of the big lies about it like the “death panel” smear.

Performance artist genius, Dina Martina, barking for her latest show in Provincetown, by Ewa Nogiec, whose work can be found here and here, published on the town's Facebook community space. As you've probably gleaned by now, we're finally at the end of the Cape for the summer. The beagles are ecstatic.

Mary Fischer profiles Dr. Peter Whybrow, who argues that we're addicted to technology – and therefore stress:

"The computer is electronic cocaine for many people," says Whybrow. "Our brains are wired for finding immediate reward. With technology, novelty is the reward. You essentially become addicted to novelty." We can’t stop because the brain has no built-in braking system. With most natural constraints gone, all we’ve got left is our own intelligence and the internal regulatory system in the frontal cortex, the most recent evolutionary addition to the brain. This "executive brain" regulates impulse control and reasoning. But, Whybrow notes, “despite our superior intelligence, we remain driven by our ancient desires."

Happy first day of summer:

Amy Davidson ponders dressage and Ann Romney's Olympian horse, Rafalca:

The potential reward for the Romneys is that voters will come to think of Ann Romney as a matronly Kerri Strug. The danger is that they will be haunted by a vision of a First Lady wearing a top hat in the Inaugural parade, riding through Washington on a high-stepping horse. None of this is Rafalca’s fault. The horse is on our team, as Americans. It would be churlish, knowing nothing else about horses—and let’s admit that most of us don’t—to boo him. But we shouldn’t let ourselves be bullied into waving little Rafalca flags, either.

The Romneys reported a business loss for the care of Rafalca that added up to some seventy-seven thousand dollars. This may be entirely within the rules, but it’s a reminder of how the tax code is full of pleasant surprises if one is rich, which remain invisible if one is not.

Earlier Dish on dressage here and here. Colbert captured the awkwardness perfectly, of course.

Dan Lyons sees the new tablet as part of a larger trend:

In the new era, three major players—Apple, Google, and Microsoft—will sell complete solutions, with four main elements: hardware, operating software, online store for selling apps and content (music, movies) for those devices, and a cloud service for storing content.

Casey Mulligan recalls when "the Justice Department accused Microsoft of maintaining a monopoly in personal-computer operating systems and expressed concern that Microsoft would extend that monopoly":

In the computer industry at least, current market shares are no guarantee of future success. What might appear to be monopolies are frequently and decisively broken by innovative competitors rather than antitrust regulators.

To scale.

An essay examining the question:

[I]t is now less clear what kind of events should reasonably trigger a war, as well as how and when new technologies may be used. With cyberweapons, a war theoretically could be waged without casualties or political risk, so their attractiveness is great — maybe so irresistible that nations are tempted to use them before such aggression is justified.

Roger Crisp counters, suggesting that cyber weapons "aren’t as novel" as people think:

A not uncommon experience when cycling home in Oxford late at night is for groups of drunken youths to shout abuse at one from a passing car. That’s aggression, but there’s no danger to my life or even my well-being (since it doesn’t bother me in the slightest). As Lin et al. say, it may indeed be difficult to distinguish a cyberattack from, say, espionage. But such grey areas are nothing new in warfare, especially since many possibly aggressive actions are in potential violation of treaties which are themselves open to differing interpretations. I see no reason, then, to conclude that traditional military ethics would not see even an unsuccessful attempt by a state to install malicious software in its enemy’s computer system as constituting an act of war deserving an appopriate, possibly military, response.

Previous Dish on the ethics of computer viruses here.

A reader writes:

Had not planned to burst into tears this morning. Thinking of those early days reminds me of those first obituaries with no mention of AIDS, just the OIs which did in fact kill the person – that cynical and convenient way of avoiding, even in death, the sexual identity of the person who had died. And no lover, boyfriend, or spouse however significant was generally mentioned. Eventually the phrase “longtime companion” crept in, which seemed to me then a monumental breakthrough. Now we have marriage and a president who speaks of it. This unthinkable (to me) chapter of my generation’s gay experience fills me with hope and pride. And yes, tears for those who left too soon. Thank you for posting this.

Our reader’s mention of the ghastly euphemism “longtime companion” reminds me of the under-rated movie of that name and its emotionally overwhelming ending (see above). Another writes:

Your blogging on the subject of “The Plague Years” makes me mad at myself that I haven’t written more about those I lost. They all deserve that from me – the last one – but those memories hurt, as you well know.  And I did not come out unscathed; while not having to deal with HIV issues, I am dealing with other health issues.

The thing is, I can’t even really talk to my partner about those times, as he didn’t come out until I met him, nine years ago.  He was 34, and pretty much was the only person on the planet who DIDN’T know he was gay.  So he saw nothing of the Hell we, the survivors, lived through, and only has an intellectual knowledge of that era.  It is a time that has no relation to him, even though he was an adult then.

I’m not much for support groups and the like, and, while I am thankful to be alive, I owe it to my old friends to take to the keyboard and write the damned thing! Thank you for the tears and the swift kick in the ass.

Another sends the quilt image seen after the jump and writes:

I normally would have avoided this movie so as to avoid reliving the pain of losing my brother, Donald J. Morris. But you have 99% convinced me that – because you were in the mix, taking notes, and saying that this film gets the chronology right – I can trust it to help me get back some of those foggy lost years.

Another:

I tested positive for HIV a month ago. I suspected I had it, I’ve had several inexplicable illnesses the last six months including ear infections, tonsillitis, random fevers, anal redness and most recently shingles – which finally got me to the clinic. I’m 37 and knew that I wouldn’t have shingles at this age unless my immune system was compromised by HIV. When I received the initial news “your test came up reactive” my head began swelling and felt like it would pop. I’ve a few ideas how I might have gotten infected, but I’ve never consciously had unprotected sex, and always thought I was safe. Must have been a drunk one, I guess.

I’m writing to you because I feel like apologizing. Getting infected now feels disrespectful to everyone that has worked so hard to fight this. I had all the information, I know the history, but I was reckless. It’s been two weeks that I’ve been on Complera. One pill. Every morning. Forever. And I’ll be fine. I already feel better. A lot better. My issues are whom to tell, will I be rejected by other men, making sure I never lose insurance, getting the refills in time. You’ve experienced things I will never know, and thanks to you and all the soldiers of the plague years my HIV status is reduced to simply a pill a day and a stigma, maybe. I’m not ready to watch that documentary, everything is a bit too fresh and I’m not so solid emotionally. I didn’t mean to do this to myself and never thought it was ok to be unsafe, I have always tried to be careful. Maybe an apology is appropriate, maybe not. It happened and I can’t change it now. I’m going to live. And I’m going to be fine. So I guess more importantly, I want to say thank you.

A couple of thoughts: enough with the apology and shame. They are the things we were most adamant about defeating, and I have to say that the biggest surprise of my HIV-diagnosis for me was discovering how much shame I still carried. I told my nephew once: “I’m so sorry I let you down.” No one would say that with a diagnosis of, say, diabetes or cancer, even though they may be connected to behavior. So no shame and no thanks needed either. We were fighting for our own lives, as well as others’. This was not an unselfish act. Another writes:

I’m sitting at my desk at work with tears streaming down my face.  Your words have such power and beauty.  I’ve been reading your stuff for years – I have a battered hardback copy of Virtually Normal that I bought a few weeks after it was published – and you still have the power to surprise and move me and this is some of the best writing you’ve ever done.  The line “the great horizontal cathedral of the AIDS quilt” is going echo in my head for days.  That’s what it is.  A fantastic, unexpected cathedral that is a space of sacred grief.

I visited the AIDS quilt once.  That was enough.  It’s overwhelming.  When one friend died, his partner put together a display of all the artwork he’d done.  Pictures of my now-dead friend, young and handsome with his other young and handsome friends, playing and enjoying life and with notes of how many of them had died.  AIDS was a horror.

I’m a few years younger than you and I still recall the bone-deep terror of AIDS in those dark days of the 1980s.  As a gay teenager in a small town in Utah, all I knew was that I would die of AIDS because that’s the information we got – gay men got AIDS and died.

When I was first-year high school student, a neighbor came home and announced he was gay.  The town agreed his father and brothers were right to beat the crap out of him and send him away – after all, the people around me said, who knew who he’d infect with AIDS.  And when he came home in the 1990s with AIDS, the town agreed his parents should throw him out. When they didn’t, no one knew how to react.

As first-year college students, my friends and I discussed in whispered voices “How do you stay safe?”  “What do you do when . . . ?”  “Where can I get condoms without having to answer some nosy pharmacist’s questions?” “Who can I talk to?”  The terror was almost too much – we all wore our Silence = Death shirts on campus.  It seemed like such a daring act at the time and maybe it was.

I’ve lost only a few friends to the plague.  But it marked all of us with an inescapable belief that sex could be deadly and that fucking is an act of incredible courage.  So many lives lost.  So much suffering.  I am weeping.