My partner Michael and I have assumed the primary responsibility for Mary, the 96 year old mother of his late partner Louis, who died in 1989. Michael and Louis were together for 14 years and, after Louis died, Michael continued to visit her and take her shopping nearly every weekend.  After I came on the scene in 1992, I learned immediately that I would be gaining two de facto mothers-in-law, one off in Texas and one right here in New York City.  Mary was quite self-sufficient until last November, but then she effectively lost the use of her right arm. In our efforts to make sure that she has the help she needs, we have discovered how the administration of Medicaid seems intended to foster resentment against the poor and immigrants.

On Huffpost I saw a story about an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/...] in which he said gay people had to change their sexual ethics and should be welcomed but not included in the church.  I'm not Anglican, or even Episcopal, but Williams' earlier writings had made me hope that he understood something about homosexuality. I sent a response to the website of the Anglican Communion but I expect that there were many other emails and they will probably be discarded without being read. So I thought I would use my diary privilege to report what is said.

There is a fundamental problem with both lobbying and campaign finance that none of the existing laws or proposed reforms can fix, one that stems from the decision of the Supreme Court 30 years ago in the case of Buckley v Valeo. In that case the Court declared that the right of free speech, including political speech, must be afforded not only to natural persons but also to juridical persons like corporations. It would be wonderful if this precedent could be overturned, but the appointment of the corporation-friendly Alito to the Court is likely only to strengthen the power of corporations over our government.  So we need to get more creative.

In the science section of today's New York Times, Jonathan Miller writes that conservatives have taken to the film "March of the Penguins" as support for traditional marriage, since penguins form enduring pair bonds.  So Michael Medved gushes that the film "passionately affirms traditional norms like monogamy, sacrifice and child rearing" and Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, holds up penguins as an "ideal example of monogamy."  Andrew Coffin, writing in World Magazine (described as "a Christian publication") even thinks the film provides support for intelligent design (a more convoluted argument apparently based on their ability to survive in harsh climates).  

What these conservative fans have failed to consider, however, is that penguins are one of the many species that exhibit homosexual behavior.  

Two weeks ago tonight I went into our next door neighbor's apartment to check on him. He had started drinking again the week before but this time he had fessed up and checked himself into the hospital after a few days. He got out of the hospital a week later. The doctors had finally stabilized his heart, but not before finding one more medical condition, this one unrelated to his life-long struggle with alcoholism and depression. We had family visiting when he got out and he said he was not up to socializing yet and just wanted to rest up over the weekend, when he knew we would be away at a school reunion.

We worried about him over the weekend. The end of summer was a dangerous time since it meant that the days were getting darker and his drug benefits were about to run out for the year. We and his other friends routinely "lent" him money for prescriptions in the fall but he was keenly aware of dependence on this charity. He fretted endlessly about being a burden on us and nothing we could say could change the situation. And of course the new diagnosis meant yet another regimen of expensive drugs.

Our worries were well-founded. Two weeks ago tonight I opened the door and found his body in the bathtub, where he had bled to death from self-inflicted wounds.

I know that many Republicans are very generous with their individual charity but they seem unable or unwilling to see that by subjugating the needs of the ill and disabled to the profits of the pharmaceutical companies, they are robbing millions of their human dignity -- and even of their lives.

Yesterday's employment figures mean that the continuing export of US jobs will continue to be a big issue in the campaign.  But Democrats must be careful not to fall for the lure of blunderbuss protectionism that could trigger global trade wars and alienate progressives who are concerned about the distribution of wealth both within the US and internationally.

It is not the possibility of competition from truly Mexican, Indian and Chinese companies that most angers American workers.  It is seeing that American companies are outsourcing their jobs abroad.  And, as the cheerleaders for globalization remind us, hiring foreign workers actually increases the profits of the US companies that own the underlying technology.

So the real problem is not foreign competition but the ability of the owners of capital to shift employment around without sharing the real wealth either at home or abroad.  The Democrats should work on a strategy to target this phenomenon as precisely as possible.  For example, there is a legal concept of ultimate economic control that is used in evaluating the effect on competition of proposed mergers.  This sort of concept could be used to determine whether an importer should be deemed a US entity whose employees should be subject to US labor standards.

In the end, if the owners and CEOs themselves want to relocate to the developing world in order to employ the locals, let them do so.  But if they want to keep their corporate offices and mansions in the US, hold them to US standards for all of their workforce or make them pay an employment tax for the jobs they export.