this whole mrsa thing

so i send a friend of mine several MRSA-related links, including one for the above map that’s been making the rounds lately, and the follow-up conversation goes pretty much like this:

him: oh, this is complete bullshit—the breeders are always blaming us for everything. MRSA has been around in hospitals and prisons for years and athletes get it all the time.

me: look at the map.

him: and who came up with this data anyway? i’ll bet it’s skewed somehow, or at least not all that accurate--and besides that, of course more gay men in metropolitan areas are gonna get it, more of them being immune-suppressed and all. doesn’t mean shit.

me: look at the map.

him: and just look at all these other stories on this—the lurid headlines, the fucking christians going apeshit with their tired “wages of sin” routine, calling this the new gay plague—well, i got news for them: vaginas are just as much a breeding ground as assholes and there are straight people who screw around just as much as we do, and furthermo--

me: LOOK. AT. THE. GOD. DAMN. MAP.

* * * * *

i submit this conversation for your consideration not only because it's representative of several i've had concerning this issue, but because it reflects the way many of the blogs i read are dealing with it as well. i know that everybody’s got their own axe to grind and it’s entertaining to watch the various factions slanting the story to suit their own purposes as it unfolds, but that’s all secondary to me.

see, several years ago, i got a small cut on the outside of my right calf, which was healing normally until one day it wasn’t—it became sore and inflamed in a way that it hadn’t been even when it was fresh, and then little red spider legs of infection began pushing their way outward from the wound.

at the emergency room, the first doctor who examined me did something i thought at the time to be very un-doctorly: he took a ball-point pen from his pocket, bent over my leg and outlined the redness surrounding what was by now an abscess, and said he’d be back in a few minutes to cut the infection out. when he returned, he pointed out to me that the redness had overgrown by almost an inch in every direction the outline he had drawn only half an hour earlier--and told me that, had i waited another day i’d have probably lost the leg. as it was, i was bedridden on powerful iv antibiotics for almost a week, with a month of oral antibiotics after that, and left with a shallow, scarred crater the size of a quarter on my right calf as a memento of the experience--and i'm one of the lucky ones.

so, while i’m all about calculated risk and cost/benefit analysis—and god knows i’ve skated along one edge or another for most of my gay life— the prospect of coming into contact with this shit gets my attention in a way that hiv never did. and when I look at that map, with its big red blotch at the epicenter of san francisco’s gay community radiating outwards into surrounding areas, it’s a lot like looking down at my leg in the ER that day.

you want to get caught up in all the finger-pointing and mudslinging surrounding this issue, fine—knock yourself out, but to me that’s all diversionary. the handwriting on the wall i'm seeing is that the sluttier you and the people you fuck around with are, the more (and ever-increasingly) likely it is that you’re gonna come into contact with MRSA. god’s judgment on fags? hell, no—just one more little reminder by mother nature about the consequences of excess.

yours truly,

larry kramer

this whole subprime thing (part 1 of 2)

i have a reputation among my friends and family as a bit of a gambler. of course, i don’t see it that way; from my point of view, i am merely possessed of a somewhat higher tolerance for calculated risk than most people. but regardless of how you look at it, there’s no question that i’ve more than once jumped off a diving board betting there’d be water in the pool by the time i landed. sometimes the outcome has been, well, suboptimal (ask me sometime about the world’s first mobile chinese restaurant—on second thought, don’t); other times I have succeeded brilliantly, often in spite of myself.

case in point: back in 1995 i decided to do something I had never done before—and that practically nobody else in los angeles was doing at the time.

i decided to buy a house.

now, this was on its face a roll of the dice, because (a) the local economy was in its fifth year of a seemingly endless slump, (b) i wasn’t making much money and any house payment would be a stretch, and (c) i was looking at buying in the most simultaneously depressed and expensive real estate market in the country.

(and to be fair and give the reader a complete picture, i guess i should also throw in (d) at the time i was probably way too distracted by my hedonistic and single-minded pursuit of boy-ass all over west hollywood to even think of getting into anything approaching this level of grown-up seriousness.)

but nonetheless, i had done my homework, watched the market, was tired of being poor and the timing seemed right to me. so, knowing my city and what would be important at resale time—and ignoring the greek chorus of doom all around me telling me i was insane—i passed up nicer houses in lesser areas and searched until i found the cheapest little shack in the flashiest zip code (yeah, that one) that had been on the market the longest; made a lowball offer which was immediately accepted; and wangled a ridiculously long escrow outta the desperate seller in order to give me sufficient time to beg, borrow, cajole and sell enough shit to come up with the necessary down payment (oh, did i not mention i was also stone-cold broke at the time?).

then, at the end of the most intense, focused ninety-day effort of my entire life to that point, i showed up at the closing waving my down-payment cashier's check, signed the papers, accepted my shiny new keys and, completely penniless, moved into what was undoubtedly--as my incredulous brother back in texas, whom i'd just successfully hit up for five grand, put it--“the most expensive and crappiest house in our entire family.”

and it was tough at first but, quicker than I had figured, within a year the market started to recover. and within four years my humble little shack had appreciated sufficiently to allow me to pull out enough cash to not only pay off my previous benefactors but also cover the down payment on the next one—a real fixer—a block away.

by this time I was making a lot more money and was in much better financial shape, and this new house was an unbelievable bargain--but it was still a risk. and again, everybody told me I was nuts, because surely nobody in my position buys two houses, right? but i saw what was happening in the market, how quickly it was coming around and how people were just starting to catch on to that fact, and I figured this was it—my one chance—and i'd better grab it.

so i did—and the fact that it turned out to be the best decision i ever made is not the point of this post.

see, for brevity’s sake I’m limiting this discussion to the things i did right during this period, but there were several points where this whole thing could’ve easily gone the other way—and nearly did (for instance, perhaps one of these days I’ll write the guttermorality guide to why it’s rarely a good idea to try to single-handedly remodel two houses simultaneously)—but, having established my propensity for risk-taking, the points I’m trying to make are as follows:

1. i went into all this knowing there was more than a slight chance i might well hit the bottom of an empty pool—and that if i did, not only would there be no one but myself to blame, there would be no one there to catch me—nor would I expect anyone to, seeing as i do that this whole risk/reward thing is what built this country in the first place.

2. of all the risks i took--and through all my many loans, refinancings and second mortgages--never once, for even a second, did i ever consider an adjustable-rate mortgage as an option--i mean, i may be a gambler, but i’m not a fool.

now, in retrospect, not going the ARM route turned out to be a bad decision on my part because interest rates did nothing but go down during this entire period, but I had no way of knowing that—and that’s the point: no one does, and interest rates don’t necessarily follow any even slightly-predictable path. which, far as i’m concerned, makes an ARM an unacceptable risk in almost any circumstance. and with all the variables i was dealing with, the one thing upon which i knew i could rely was that, no matter what else happened, my payments would never go up.

shame that millions of my countrymen didn’t see it that way, too, when they were feverishly making their own purchases at the peak of this real estate bubble of which i speak—but hey, guess what? due to popular demand, the politicians of america, pandering shamelessly for your votes, are gonna eliminate that risk for you!

in fact, i was listening to the radio today—hillary’s in town, talking to the folks down in compton (still trying to rack up “I’m blacker than you” points against obama, I guess), and you want to hear her solution to this subprime mess? well, hang onto your hats, because i almost spit a mouthful of coke and half-crunched-up ice all over my desk when i did--to cheers and applause, hillary tells the crowd that she favors a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures, a five (that's FIVE)-year interest rate freeze for subprime mortgages, and a $30 billion dollar bail-out plan for pretty much anybody caught in the housing crunch--all told, about $70 billion in total.

and who'll pay for it? well, that's easy--she proposes eliminating the tax cuts currently enjoyed by those making more than $250k.

now, regardless of how you feel about tax cuts for the medium-rich, look at the message she's putting out there: basically, what she's saying to all the stupid, impulsive or injudicious people of america who can't manage their finances or their lives is, "don't worry--go out and be as stupid and impulsive and injudicious as you want, because when you fuck up, we'll just grab money from the smart and successful people and bail you out!"

land of the free and home of the brave, my ass.

the whole tiger thing

so i keep finding myself having this same conversation over and over again, almost always with someone under 25; in fact, the younger they are, the more mystified they seem to be as to why lots of people aren't more sympathetic to the guys who were mauled by the tiger.

to me the answer is simple--it involves a basic, elemental law of nature that has guided human behavior since time immemorial: in the real world, actions have consequences--and the immediacy and severity of said consequences can pretty much be reliably counted upon to increase in direct proportion to the stupidity of one's actions.

most post-adolescents in the real world with three-digit i.q.'s innately understand--and tend to carefully abide by--this concept, which is how they survive long enough to breed.

unfortunately (at least from my point of view) we're not talking about the real world in this instance; we're talking about america in the new millenium where, no matter how stupid your actions might be, "they" are supposed to protect you from any and all harm; consequently, i really can't fault the twentysomethings for their take on this--it's the way they were raised.

being of (and from) a different age, i look at it more this way: to all appearances, the zoo's safeguards did a perfectly fine job of keeping the tigers safely separated from all the reasonable, rational humans who visited its grounds for almost two decades. but because in perfect-world america the zoo's planners committed the unforgivable offense of failing to anticipate the day that some cretinous drunken adolescents would decide that it'd be fun to taunt a tiger, slingshot a few rocks at it and then maybe even drape a waggling limb over its fence, thus providing the enraged and adrenaline-fueled animal a foothold upon which to claw its way out of a pen it probably never would've been able to escape otherwise (and you know damn well that's what happened)--because of that egregious oversight--the zoo will pay dearly for this little mishap.

see, had this happened in, say, 1965, this would have been seen, and treated as, an isolated incident. zoo would've paid some out to the dead kid's family, covered his injured friends' medical expenses, raised the fencing in the tiger's enclosure by three or so feet to safeguard against the unlikely event of such an occurrence ever happening again, and that would've been pretty much it. there would've been no public outcry, no national story--especially when the ugly truth about these guys and what they did began to emerge--because people back then understood that there was a price to be paid for foolishness.

but forget then; here's how it's gonna play out in 2008 (and why, incidentally, lots of people are so pissed): (1) the "victims" predictably and immediately lawyered up, and mark garagos, sleazeball attorney extraordinaire, will secure huge settlements for them all--because god knows the zoo wouldn't dare go to trial with this in california; (2) as a result, the liability insurance for zoos--which i'd be willing to bet up until now has been fairly reasonable--will skyrocket, and carriers will demand that all zoos shell out additional funds to idiot-proof their enclosures beyond all reasonable standards if they want to keep their coverage (such costs to be passed on to the municipal taxpayers and zoo patrons, of course); and (3) as a result of (2), future zoo-goers across the land will pay more to get less, as admission fees increase and reasonable proximity to the animals diminishes--all of this goodness visited upon america courtesy of these three assholes.

now, please understand--i'm not saying the zoo doesn't have liability here; they've even acknowledged (probably stupidly) that the fence shoulda been higher.

what i am saying is that the thugs who i have absolutely no doubt provoked this incident should--rather than winning the lottery--share in that responsibility; hell, it's looking increasingly likely that they should probably be charged with complicity in the death of their friend.

but we all know that's not gonna happen--the new american ethos dictates that
everybody but the ones who really caused this will end up paying for it; ironically (and in my opinion criminally), their irresponsibility has probably insured that they'll be set for life.

ok, so much for being an independent

"Your choice of color scheme for your site is gorgeous! How'd you come up with it? Oh, wait…never mind."

and damned if he's not right--cross your eyes a little, this blog looks just like his.

gives me something to shoot for, i guess.

why i'm an independent

so what finally converted me from career lurker and commenter to actual blogger--even if only for one entry--was a post by scott over at bill in exile featuring atrios' blanket dismissal of political independents as not only being arrogant and stupid, but having "little understanding of how politics works."

i make it a point to read lots of stuff that conflicts with my particular world view and take almost none of it personally, but for some reason this facile characterization of independents pissed me off in a way that i haven't been pissed off in a while and i still can't figure out exactly why--maybe because i'm far from stupid, but more likely it's because the very fact that i have studied politics--and the pitfalls of concentrating unchecked power in the hands of any one group (or in this case, two)--is what made me an independent in the first place.

see, knowing what i know and seeing what i've seen, i'm all about the checks and the balances--and fuck the goddam parties.

when i was a kid i had to memorize this longfellow poem, and for some reason the old boy's metaphor for america--those first five lines--struck a chord with me. i like thinking of our country as this great ship of state making its way through perilous straits--veer too far to starboard and we'll break up on the rocks of police-state fascism; too far to port, we'll wash up on the sands of welfare-state socialism. but steer a rational middle course, and maybe we--and the world hanging breathless on our fate--will come through it all ok.

problem is, things have devolved to the point where there is no middle course for america anymore--now we've got two diametrically opposed crews yanking the helm wildly back and forth as they fight for control, to the point where it's pretty much inevitable we're gonna run aground; only questions in my mind are (a) on which shore we're gonna end up, and (b) how soon it'll happen.

so, given that context--and being handicapped as i am by my stupid, arrogant babe-in-the-woods independence--i find myself faced with the following killer dilemma come this november:

since, on the one hand, democrats will probably control not just one but both houses of congress for the foreseeable, how can i support a democrat for president, knowing as i do that after eight years of unchecked liberalism (especially with this choice of candidates) we'll end up with a bloated, initiative-killing, tax-sucking welfare/nanny state the likes of which will make johnson's great society look like rugged frontier individualism by comparison?

on the other hand--even given my conviction that maintaining tension between the executive and legislative branches is essential--how can i support a republican for president, knowing as i do the damage to the already-skewed judicial branch (and what's left of our civil liberties) that eight more years of conservative federal-level district, appellate and supreme court appointments would do?

so i'm torn.

now, i know--because i read their blogs--that there are lots of bright, articulate people out there who never lose a minute's sleep agonizing over shit like this, resting securely as they do in the knowledge that their party is the true champion of the american way--and i smile grimly to myself because the observable reality is so goddam different.

and i'm reminded that, long before eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex, a much earlier president (the first one, actually) on his way out the door warned us about getting locked into a two-party system--and damned if he didn't turn out to be right.

because it's clear to me (based on all kinds of hard, objective evidence i'll be happy to spew out if anybody asks) that the two main political parties of this country no longer give a rat's ass about the little people who keep them in power; mainly because, thanks to the straight-party-ticket mentality of which atrios and scott are so seemingly fond, they no longer have to. because when it comes right down to it, what are the minorities/middle class/union members/small-business owners/gays/seniors/feminists/evangelicals gonna do when their beloved party betrays their perceived interests--vote for the other side?

the answer, of course, is hell no--and both the dems and the gop know it. they encourage polarization--hell, they feed it--and laugh all the way to the polls, knowing that as long as they give their constituents the illusion of choice among various candidates they'll have their respective sheep pretty much tagged and penned, leaving them free to concentrate on their real priorities: increasing their power, entrenching their self-serving ideology and bartering their votes for special-interest campaign money.

tell you the truth, i wish there were more real american independents--voters ready and willing to say "fuck you--i'll either stay at home come election day or vote for the other side just to spite you" when their party screws them (or, even better, my political wet dream: a viable socially-progressive, fiscally-responsible third party--not that that's ever gonna happen, of course).

so, scott and atrios, that's my take on why there are so many independents out there--it's because lots of us know that, as somebody once said, "determining whether the republicans or democrats are best suited to run america is pretty much like trying to decide whether the gambinos or corleones should run las vegas."

i only wish i'd said it first.

* * * * *

[and yeah, i've left iraq outta the above deliberations for the following two very simple reasons: (1) fuck iraq--if the republicans win and we stay we're fucked, and if the democrats win and we bail we're equally fucked, only in a different hole; and (2) being a new blogger and all, i can only handle one sophie's choice per post, sorry.]