PrivateTim

Don't you have a bull shit filter??

At some point logic has to kick in. If the Lord High Arbour has gone through the trouble to create a character like Ethan it stands to reason that Ethan has a role to play in the story that no one else could fulfill, not Beau, not Wade, no one else. The next step in the logic is that there are not many main players in the story who are straight.

Not to mention all the fab gay sex at all boy boarding schools......

So does any adult male of a certain age in CAP NOT have an illegitimate child??? The beautiful thing of this literary device is it lets you add new characters or make relatives out of old characters. Looking very much to finding out more about Ethan

Again, maybe I am confusing characters, but Brad was not born out of wedlock. His mother was married...... just not to the man who was his father. Brad's mother had a reason for keeping his parentage secret and one has to assume it was an "accident". While Will's conception might have been an accident, there was no need for any mystery or embarrassment over his parentage. I recall that Brad was pretty okay with it. That Brad treated Jeanine like hired help was just Brad. A lot of men treat their partners like hired help.

I agree with Mark. While JJ might put up this elitist front and airs, he is a very insecure kid looking for attention. That was the opening his skate coach saw and took advantage of. A lot of the kids who fall to someone like the coach think it is an equal caring relationship at the time, only later do they see what really happened. We often criticize in others what we fear in ourselves. I think any cute guy who paid attention to JJ, complimented JJ, fed his insecurities (in a positive way) would have JJ eating out of his hands. But Will is Brad's natural son and it wasn't some hidden, quiet affair, it was an open three-way with Jeanine as I recall and they were waiting to see who the father was, Robbie or Brad, and they had already agreed to live as a thr-ouple.

Thanks Jeremy, that is awesome..... but especially with Marcel, I kept hearing a voice in my head saying.... "like sands through the hourglass....."

I too think we need a cast of characters that reminds us who Billy, Lou, Father Tim (who is he dating again?), Mouse, etc and those above were, especially when they get referred back to.

The S&L crisis had many fathers, but like all disasters became an orphan quickly. The first deregulation under Carter and the high interest rates of the Carter era coupled with the second deregulation under Reagan and ironically falling interest rates, both took their toll. The ACRS of Kemp Roth only lasted one year, being repealed by TEFRA in 1982 so it wasn't much of a contributor to the S&L crisis. Lack of oversight was a problem, "deregulation" didn't mean all the laws were repealed and there was no regulation, but some of the controls on the outright fraudsters like Keating were not exercised and in no small part to the "Keating Five" who all seemed to escape culpability. Clinton's boom was because he worked with the Republican controlled House to restrain spending and because he, with the full acquiescence of the GOP House, drastically cut military spending, the so called "peace dividend". Military spending dropped from $427b in Reagan's last year to as low as as $296b under Clinton. I am not blaming Clinton, it didn't seem unreasonable at the time, but hindsight being 20/20, it was and having to rebuild the military back to acceptable levels was a big part of Bush II's deficits. Military spending was back up to $536b by 2006 and that excludes the expenses for Iran and Afghanistan, which were separate budgets. Would Clinton ever have had a surplus if military spending had maintained where it was under Reagan? Not likely. Would Bush have had as high of deficits if his DoD didn't have to make up for lost years? Probably not. But those are discussions to be had 20 years from now or 30 years from now in the hindsight of history and among those who have emotional stock in one side or the other. If Bush II had wielded his veto pen and forced the Republicans who became born again spending hogs in the House to follow the fiscal restraint they preached, they might never have lost the House to begin with. I have no sympathy for the House leadership that thought they could spend money like drunken sailors in port and thought no one would notice.

Oh.... and I had ZERO sympathy for George Bush, he got exactly what he deserved for being swayed by his former colleagues in the House to break his no new taxes pledge.

I said the "expansion of the 80's", I very pointedly did not call it the "Reagan Boom" because I do believe Presidents have limited ability to stimulate growth. There are policies they have that can allow capital to accumulate and tax policy that rewards or encourages risk. Also there are policies that can reduce the regulatory burden and you have to factor in who is in power in Congress because that will temper the results somewhat too. A lot of people focus on Clinton's raising the income tax on the wealthy as proof that high marginal rates don't kill growth fail to remember that Clinton (with the GOP House) lowered the capital gains rate to 21% and that was when his economy really roared, the deficit dropped and went positive. But a lot of the successful companies of the 1990's had their founding in both the capital formation of the 1980's and the deregulation, whether by statute or lawsuit, of the 1980's. The MFJ that broke up AT&T fueled a telecommunications/technology boom that is still going on. So many factors came into play for both Reagan and Clinton, but in each case the president worked with Congress and things got done. That all changed in 2001 (2000 election) and the bitterness that ensued. While I think some of the partisan bickering can be traced to the borking of Robert Bork (1987), I think it intensified and magnified in 2000 and things have never been the same since. As to JJ, why in the hell would he like outlet shopping?? I am with Kitt, he'd be in the boutiques of Princeton or heading to 5th Ave in NYC.

Except that the Clinton economic boom was just a continuation the the 1980's expansion and we already were at war, we just didn't recognize it as such, or didn't respond militarily. Starting with the first WTC bombing in 1993, through the attacks on the USS Cole, the embassies in Africa and Khobar Towers, Al-Qaeda was striking at the U.S., but no one took those attacks seriously and as a mission for the military to solve. The focus was, "we don't the military anymore". And it was Bush's breaking his "no new taxes" pledge and his jump in spending that led to the rise of Perot and his defeat. Don't forget Clinton only got 43% of the vote.

Interesting chapter.... I guess I'd forgotten that Mouse and JP were lovers. I mean Mouse was a classmate of Robbie's & Brad's and Gunn, right? It seems like JP & Stef have been together forever, but it really hasn't been that long, just a few years. It was nice to see Elizabeth temporarily thwarted and to see Wade and Em having a good time with each other. The question is, will she stay thus?

Aww, c'mon.. you KNEW this was coming...

Just a quick answer so as to not sidetrack the conversation too much..... I've noticed that different gay areas have their own "zeitgeist" for lack of a better term (tone, tenor, flavor?). I saw more "salt and pepper" couples in the ATL than I had ever seen in LA. I've seen very few in LA. SF was an older scene, very few spots for youngin's (thank gawd for JR's when I was in college), NYC had its quirks and DC too. LA obviously has a large Asian population and a large Hispanic population. There were club nights specifically for Asians like Buddha Lounge and GAMeBoi, Club Chilie and Rebelde for Latin, and of course the various, leather, daddy, etc club nights.... Anyway, to the point.... a lot of Asian guys don't like Asians, they only like white guys (potato queens), but the white guys they like (twinks) are never the white guys that like them (older white guys, rice queens). It can be complicated.... then there are the Asians guys who ONLY like Asians (sticky rice) and give crap to any Asian who dates Hispanic guys (bean queen) and white guys. Then of course the older white guys who date the Asian twinks get the double whammy of being chicken hawks and rice queens. Like I said... LA is a complicated scene...

Here's a newsflash you can feel insulted, offended and wronged..... but still wrong in what you are saying. I am going to guess you don't use Grindr and Jack'd a lot, but if you did you'd see a lot of guys, maybe most, are still asking guys if they are "clean" and many ask about "D&D free" and clean doesn't just mean HIV+, but it also means any of the rather nasty venereal diseases and sexually transmitted diseases out there right now that actually worry people more than HIV. And don't kid yourself that the young guy who becomes HIV+ is getting treated nicer or better, they still become pariahs in large swaths of the gay community along with old guys, fat guys, Asian guys and the horribly unfortunate fat, old Asian guys. Mark did not make a mistake, he wrote it the way it happens. If he chooses to write about Stanford's queer studies program I'll be horribly offended because I find the word queer horribly offensive, it would be akin to Stanford having a "nigger studies" program. But me choosing to be offended doesn't change the reality that that is what it is and what it is called.

Jeremy?

I said it a bit ago and I'll say it again. What makes JJ different in this story is that he is actually the most normal main character there is. It is the others who are the anomalies, not him. Very well said and kind of what I said in my review.

Amazing how the stories of 9/11 can still impact emotion so strongly and take me back to those days in an instant. The guys in Joey's company had to know he was gay, or at least a few guys. While it might be hard for some Catholic families in the NYC area, it isn't for others, NYPD and NYFD are two of the more progressive departments when it comes to gay policies and there have been out people in both departments for decades. It does throw two new interesting twists, John, who can move Will's world too and what will happen with Tony when school starts. I'm still looking forward to time with Cam and want to see where Alistair winds up. I like Kai, but I don't think he'll get to Will's level intellectually and I think that would be a major stopper in their future unless Kai gets off the island.

Hey I thought we were in a government shutdown! What's wrong with your school?? Don't make me read legal briefs when I can goof off with CAP!

All these voices in my head! Make them go away! Actually it was nice to get inside JJ's head for a bit. I find him a lot more interesting and complex than most people I think. He has a lot to deal with. What makes him stand out in the story is that he is pretty normal. The pressure he must face in the skating world because of his completely off the charts different family must be tremendous.

Brad is waaaaaaaaaay too old for Lark. Besides, Brad and Lark were never about love, just lust. Cody isn't right because he is not ready for that yet. Well now that word replace reminds me of a story. A friend of mine had this conversation with his wife: Mary: honey, if I passed away, would you marry again? Larry: I suppose, I mean I am young and I think I'd get lonely. Mary: would she sleep in our bed? Larry: The bed isn't that old, so I suppose, sure. Mary: would she wear my clothes? Larry: you have great taste dear, so if she were the same size, yeah, why not Mary contemplates that and asks one final question: would she use my golf clubs? Larry quickly answered: oh no, she's left handed! Brad and Matt would be too creepy to contemplate. It is creepy enough that Brad hooked up with the boyfriend of his boyfriend's son.

I don't think Will is more mature than Brad I think they are both products of their upbringing and a reflection of their times. Remember the shy, reserved Brad who became blood brothers with Stef? Brad having a mother who actively hated him, a father he never knew who wasn't his father at all. Being gay in time when being gay was still not all that cool or accepted. For good, bad or indifferent Will always knew his parents did not actively, viscerally hate him the way Brad's mother did. Will was able to be openly gay easily both from a societal and familial aspect. I have a lot of friends like Brad, Brad's age and close to Brad's power status. Very few of them date people their own age or get into relationships with people their own age and it doesn't matter gay or straight. It is especially true for guys used to control and who enjoy control. I can see Brad screwing some college twinks, but for a relationship getting serious with a 27 or 28 year old. That is someone a bit more mature than a college party boy, but not a 39 year old either. Brad is going to attract that age range like flies to a cow patty. Those guys want someone older, more stable, but still in good shape. The 28/29 year old is so over his peers he wants more mature and is looking for someone who can take the lead in a relationship. The idea of equal partners is great on paper, but it is a lot easier when someone is leading when you waltz. How old is Wade's lawyer?? That is the kind of guy I can see Brad with.

Yes one of the great mysteries of life is when to use affect vs effect and how to use it without making yourself appear to have an affect.

But the interesting part of the chapter was the issues between Brad and Robbie that we didn't know existed and maybe more to the point, Will didn't know existed. Will in typical teen mode is so absorbed in his life that he doesn't think of the lives of his parents and the struggles they might be going through and how their actions towards him might be effected by what is happening in their lives. When I was a kid you never even really thought of your parents as being people, let alone human. They were just...... well parents. You didn't contemplate what drove and motivated them (until that first Psych 101 class freshman year when you came home over Christmas and psychoanalyzed everyone in the house including the cat's unconscious motivations) you just had these expectations of them to be perfect and not make mistakes and not to have fears and insecurities of their own. I look forward to the tying up of loose ends, reconciliations and set-ups for the future. Do we know if Ryan and Jeff have net yet?