No, I'm not the Taxman

The Bush Administrations (Rove) use of gay issues and stirring up homophobia, has created the aura that it’s okay to treat gays differently. Unfortunately it’s costing some people their jobs. In Texas, a basketball coach was fired because she was a lesbian. Fair? Of course not. But there is a fine line we are walking right now, gays are being marginalized at second-class citizen, much like the Jim Crow South. Dread Scott put this country back years in terms of civil rights, the idea that some citizens were separate but equal. This is starting to happen now with gays in this country. Hopefully we can nip this in the bud before it gets to anything like Jim Crow, but as of right now, I’m worried.

Krugman takes another look at the health care system in this country. It’s a poorly run system, when no one likes each other. I read an interesting article in the Economist about a month ago where the new idea is to pay doctors and hospitals on follow up care, for making sure patients take their medication, get their blood drawn, and everything else. So often people go to the doctor, are told what they need to do to stay healthy, and no one does anything about it. Doctors don’t follow up on what the patients need to do. This alone would say millions in health care spending.

And finally, there was yet another incident of fans over stepping their boundaries in a game and it causing a player reaction last night. This time, some moron in Boston took a swing or at least tired to impede Gary Sheffield from making a play in fair territory. Sheffield fielded the ball, shoved the fan, made the throw in, and then turned and jawed at the fan. Nothing happened beyond that, but it could have been really ugly. Hopefully the fan will be at least suspended from Fenway for a year or two, Sheffield fined (just a slap on the wrist, he really didn’t do anything wrong). And I’d like to see baseball really make a statement, something that David Stern and the NBA did not do, but have the Red Sox play one game in front of an empty stadium. Send a message to fans out there that they are not part of the game and they cannot cross the ‘line’ between the game/action and spectators.

But man are these Boston fans out of control or what? Please, just go away.