If I can clothe the naked and don't am I not a robber?

I finished the book Joseph and His Friend by Bayard Taylor, first published in 1870. I bought it in a modern reprint because it was described as early gay literature and has a cover photo of two men, one with his hand on the other’s shoulder. The introduction describes it as the first gay novel, almost 60 years before Radclyfffe Hall published The Well of Loneliness about lesbians in 1928. The story is about Joseph (of course), age 22 and owner of a farm in Pennsylvania. His parents are gone, so his aunt lives with him to take care of the house while he and a hired man do the farm work. His friends begin to hold social events at each other’s homes. At one of these he meets Julia, who is from the city (which city isn’t mentioned). For a while the tone seems to be country good, city bad. Soon Joseph and Julia are engaged. I’ll pause at this point to say the story was pretty good and enjoyable. But it wasn’t at all what I was expecting. The rest of this review will contain spoilers. Starting with: Joseph and Julia get married. So if this is a gay story we have to deal with the wife. That seems possible because Julia reveals another side of herself. During the visit to the country she talked about the insincerity of the city social life. But after the wedding and when development begins to come to the country she quickly brings city social standing ideas to the country. She wants her home to be a splendid showcase to impress the neighbors, a very city thing (and social hierarchy thing). She is aided in this effort because her father is a speculator, always having some investment plan going (in reading about his plans I kept thinking I would never let this guy invest my money) and she is counting on Joseph’s future profits. Joseph begins to despise her. Step one of bypassing the wife seems to be going well. Step two then would be acquiring the friend of the title. That is Philip, who rescues Joseph after an accident. They become quick friends (without actually describing how that happens). And then... nothing. Well, nothing more. Joseph and Philip kiss once and hold hands once. They talk about obeying a higher law and mention manly love. At a critical time Philip does a great deal to help Joseph. But they never do anything to make me think the relationship has passed beyond best friends. They don’t even move in together. So I dispute this is a gay novel. I think the photo on the cover is misleading because the central relationship of the story isn’t between Joseph and Philip, it’s the change in relationship between Joseph and Julia. And nothing between Joseph and Philip has any bearing on it. So, a decent and enjoyable story. It’s just not a gay story. But in 1870 a gay story would have been difficult to get into print. My Sunday movie was Sublime, a 2022 release from Argentina. Manuel and Felipe have been best friends since they were young children. They’re now 16 and have formed a band with Mauro and Fran. Manu writes many of their songs. Manu and his girlfriend Azul are beginning to explore their sexuality, but Azul senses he’s not all that into it. Manu begins to understand the one he is into is Felipe. But that feels scary to Manu. Will professing his feelings destroy their friendship? Will it break up the band as they are preparing for their first big gig? Will Felipe feel the same way? Is Manu okay with Felipe not feeling the same way? This was an enjoyable movie, but not a great one. One reason is I became annoyed with how much the camera focused on the back of Manu’s neck leaving the scene visible over Manu’s shoulders out of focus. Last Sunday Kos of Daily Kos wrote that Democrats were about to cave on the shutdown and get very little for it. The government shutdown started because Democrats saw it as a chance to force concessions from Republicans. The concession this time was to restore subsidies for Affordable Care Act premiums, without which they would likely double or more. It has been the longest shutdown. In caving the Democrats got a promise of a vote on ACA subsidies in the Senate. Defeating it will be easy. Johnson said if it got to the House he’ll never bring it up for a vote. So all that will do is to identify which Republican senators voted no, a handy tool for next year’s election. Something, but a small something. The surrender is perplexing because the shutdown was hurting Republicans and the nasty guy cited it as a reason why Democrats won big in the recent election. On Monday Oliver Willis of Kos included several senators explaining why they voted to end the shutdown. One said the shutdown wasn’t accomplishing its goals and gave the nasty guy more power to withhold SNAP benefits. Another said there are Republicans willing to support ACA subsidies, ignoring the long Republican history of doing the opposite. Not convincing. Several months ago Niece said because of the cuts in food inspectors she was considering doing her grocery shopping in Canada. In Michigan that’s a viable alternative, though not easy. She hasn’t said if she’s actually doing that. Annie Waldman and Brandon Roberts, in an article written for ProPublica and posted on Kos, reported that there is such a thing as American inspectors at foreign food facilities and due to steep staffing cuts they are doing a lot less inspecting. This is at a time when the US is at its highest dependence on foreign food. Food safety laws are a lot more lax in many other counties. This article mentions a few bad cases. But if a facility wants to sell to America they must follow the demands of American inspectors. Who are cutting back on inspecting. So, Niece, check up on how well Canadian inspectors in other countries are doing their jobs. An Associated Press article posted on Kos reported that the Supreme Court will allow the nasty guy to continue a policy of blocking transgender and nonbinary people from choosing passport sex markers. The ruling is through the emergency docket and lasts until the case is later heard. The order is not signed, though the three liberal justices dissented with Ketanji Brown Jackson writing the dissent. The conservatives said the government is confirming a historical fact (of being assigned a gender at birth) “without subjecting anyone to differential treatment.” Wrong, said the liberals. When a passport marker doesn’t match the appearance of the person there is “increased violence, harassment, and discrimination.”

Transgender and nonbinary people who sued over the policy have reported being sexually assaulted, strip-searched and accused of presenting fake documents at airport security checks, [Jackson] wrote.

Sex markers appeared in passports in the mid 1970s. In 2021 Biden removed documentation requirements for changing a marker and allowed nonbinary people to use an X marker. The Supremes aren’t all bad (though these days are close to it). Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Tuesday Cheers and Jeers column for Kos, quoted an article from NBC News. When marriage equality was granted by the Supremes Kim Davis, a county clerk for Rowan County, Kentucky denied marriage licenses to same sex couples. She served six days in jail. This year, seeing a much more conservative Court and knowing that Clarence Thomas said he wanted to review marriage equality, Davis filed suit to give the Court that chance. After losing appeals in the 6th Circuit Court she turned to the Supremes. They refused to hear the case. A week ago, after the election, Kos wrote that the big gerrymandering effort might backfire on Republicans. Four of the new districts in Texas are Hispanic-majority. In the 2024 election they shifted strongly to the nasty guy. In the 2025 election they shifted strongly away from him. Republicans look like they assumed the shift would be permanent. In yesterday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Russell Berman and Jonathan Lemire of The Atlantic about why Democrats caved on the shutdown.

“I came to the conclusion that they were not going to cave on that red line,” Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, one of five Democrats who flipped his vote yesterday after previously backing the shutdown, told us by phone this afternoon. He acknowledged that many of his colleagues disagreed. But when he would press them on whether they believed that Republicans might come around on health care, they could not say. “There really was no evidence to suggest that they would.” ... But even though polling had swung in the Democrats’ favor, it was not enough to move the president or GOP leaders in Congress.

As I had heard put another way: The nasty guy is so much enjoying forcing the poor and working poor to go hungry to ever think he was going to give in, no matter what predictions on next year’s elections say. There are several other quotes about Democrats and Chuck Schumer. In the comments Captain Frogbert posted a quote from Saint Basil of Caesarea, (330-379 c.e.). Here’s a bit of it:

Now, someone who takes a man who is clothed and renders him naked would be termed a robber; but when someone fails to clothe the naked, while he is able to do this, is such a man deserving of any other appellation? The bread which you hold back belongs to the hungry; the coat, which you guard in your locked storage-chests, belongs to the naked; the footwear mouldering in your closet belongs to those without shoes. The silver that you keep hidden in a safe place belongs to the one in need. Thus, however many are those whom you could have provided for, so many are those whom you wrong.

Captain Frogbert added a meme, also by St. Basil:

Hell can’t be made attractive, so the devil makes attractive the road that leads there.

Drew Sheneman posted a cartoon on Kos showing an elephant holding a sign saying “Food Aid” with a line through it. He asks Jesus, “Quick question, do I still have to feed the poor if my Christianity is purely performative?”