Agree. It might be easy enough to keep the characters of Luanne and Lucky going offscreen through one-sided phone calls if they wanted to, but addressing the loss of Johnny Hardwick is going to have some growing pains at best.

I think everyone is reading this as NPS not allowing Jane Employee to show up in uniform at Pride and hang out. Maybe they’d frown on that. But what appears to be happening is that employees are petitioning to march in Pride parades, or otherwise somehow participate, as they have in years past, and which supports the LGBTQ+ Special Emphasis Program of federal agencies, and NPS is letting those requests sit.

For anyone wondering why NPS or any federal agency might participate in external events or allow employees to attend events in uniform: LGBTQ+ is one of several areas of special emphasis for federal agencies in recruitment, retention, and awareness. Others include, for example, women in government; Asian, Black, Native American, or Hispanic heritage; and people with disabilities. Special Emphasis Programs (SEP) are codified by executive order. The major intents are to dispel stereotypes, promote inclusion, and recognize the advances made by and contributions of people belonging to these groups.

As an example of the kind of participation agencies have shown under SEPs in the past—a local office may attend and set up a booth at a career fair for a Historically Black College or University. This serves employment-related outreach efforts under the SEP for the agency while also observing and recognizing this group. There is no similar Big Gay Hiring Event at a large scale, so Pride participation makes sense to further efforts under this SEP. Even apart from recruitment, the recognition of LGBTQ+ individuals—which NPS already explicitly supports through their management of Stonewall National Monument—and outward displays of inclusion for this group are equally important for prospective and current employees, as part of the culture of the agency.

What NPS has done is allow requests to participate in local Pride events as a form of observance and outreach to languish on the desks of NPS leadership.

While I’m all too happy to criticize SCOTUS, and I’m aghast at the judge shopping that is going on, these straight numbers don’t mean anything. We need to know proportions. If 10 cases are accepted from the 5th Circuit out of 100 that apply, that’s 10%. If 3 are heard from another circuit where 5 apply, that’s 60%. From the article, it seems judge shopping in the lower courts is the real issue.

The age range of millennials, the age of boomers, the idea that a forever long-term home is likely a second or third home purchase, your statement that you grew up in that house and are presumably a millennial. What year are we talking then? Average rates were level ‘85-90 in the 10% range, dropping after that.

That’s not true though. The average 30-year fixed rate in 1990 was a little over 10%.

That’s a fair point, if you’re among those who don’t wait the length of time for an entire generation to come of age and two thirds of your loan period to pass before you get to see lower interest rates. Between the late 70s and early 80s there was a steep rise in mortgage rates, but this quickly dropped off and returned to early 1970s rates. Rates stayed mostly constant from then until the 2000s when they began to drop off, reaching a near once-in-a-lifetime historic low just a few years ago.

Wages haven’t risen with inflation to allow others to reap the benefits of buying in and waiting for their property values to soar. And the topic in this particular thread isn’t renting vs buying. The original commenter stated that the article didn’t consider their parents’ 12% mortgage rate. This specific discussion is about whether holding onto a 12% loan for thirty years at a starting 1990 salary is equivalent to today’s rate with today’s prices at today’s salary—and it’s not.

I’m not a math whiz, but just using an online loan interest calculator, comparing the total cost of the median loan to median salaries for 1990 vs today, that 12% rate still doesn’t make up for the difference in home prices and the stagnating wages young people face today. Seven percent mortgage rate today (which is being generous) compared to 12% yesteryear, at homes that were one quarter of today’s price, with salaries that have grown by barely a third… it just doesn’t add up. I’m not saying your parents are wrong, I’m saying there is something wrong.

Self-medication as a term does not rely on what a healthcare professional would or would not prescribe you. It’s simply a behavior where a human self-administers any substance to treat a condition. Sometimes those substances would be recommended in certain cultures and not in others. Sometimes substances are recommended with limitations (e.g. a glass of red wine a day). But the point is that self-medicating not only doesn’t require a doctor’s note, it is often viewed as a response of asserting independence from established medicine.

I’ll echo other comments here that simply raising taxes does not seem like a successful long-term intervention strategy in a vacuum—and I don’t think the author intended for it to come across this way, though it kind of did. The availability of mental health services and a number of societal ills are what need to be addressed.

I’ll also add that in the same period when the author discusses a decrease in alcohol-related injury deaths, post-1991, there was an increase in illicit drug use as illustrated in this National Institute on Drug Abuse chart. While the increased trend in the use of any illicit drug is largely driven by marijuana in this chart, you can see there are also moderate increases for other drugs like LSD, cocaine, and later heroin.

Did the sudden availability of certain other drugs plus the higher cost barriers to obtaining alcohol create an environment that led to more drug abuse and other drug-related deaths? I don’t know, I’m not a researcher, but it’s a question.

I get what you’re saying and don’t disagree with your distinction. But it bears pointing out that it feels like splitting hairs to say self-medication and coping mechanisms aren’t the same when you’re the individual in pain.

Came for the dogs, stayed for the Scully.