7 @ 9: Bailey Park is in your heart

1. Forbes is a magazine for the 1 percent and those who wish they belonged to it, so when even Forbes accepts that Bailey Park is better than Potterville, that seems significant. “Homeownership for All: Changing the Fate of Mobile Home Owners.”

2. Josh Marshall: “It’s Over.”

Decisions will come up through the individual Circuits. In pretty short order, the Supreme Court will be forced to revisit the issue. And their logic in the Windsor case will join forces with the march of public opinion to make it almost impossible for them not to issue a broad ruling which invalidates every gay marriage ban in country.

… Nothing is ever certain. And even when it’s all but certain it’s still not easy. But I see little way to look at the last week and not conclude that gay marriage will be the law of the land in every state in the country in the near future. Probably during the Obama presidency and maybe sooner still.

3. Yesterday I linked to Ezra Klein’s discussion of how the prevention of full employment keeps workers powerless. “A slack labor market robs lower-skilled workers of their power because employers can easily replace them,” Ezra wrote.

Here’s a real-world example of exactly how this works: “We were constantly told we would end up working for McDonald’s. …”

4. I know an almost-hourlong video is about 57 minutes too long to expect web-surfers to click and watch, but Hollywood Reporter’s Actresses Roundtable is worth bookmarking and watching later when you’ve got the time. This is six smart professionals talking about craft, art, life and justice — and all the while they’re encouraging one another in a way that’s bound to make you feel a bit encouraged too.

5. Prominent psychics maintained their impressive track record with their predictions for 2013. I predict they’ll prove just as accurate this year.

6. In theory, in the abstract, we can imagine a hypothetical situation in which forming a blue-ribbon panel or a commission might be a forceful, effective response to some crisis. The idea of such a panel or commission seems like it ought to be, at least in some cases, a worthy idea: Get the best experts you can find together, have them propose a plan of action, then put that plan into action. That’s perfectly sensible. It seems like it ought to be commendable.

The problem is, though, that nine times out of 10, such blue-ribbon panels and commissions are boondoggles established to stall for time in the hopes that demands for action will fade away. Rather than a meaningful response to a crisis, such panels almost always turn out to be meaningless efforts to avoid responding.

And that’s why it’s wise for both SNAP and BishopAccountability.org to refuse to be satisfied with Pope Francis’ call to create “a commission investigating the sexual abuse of minors.”

That call is a whole lot of nothing. If the commission is actually formed, and then if that commission produces a substantive plan of action, and then if that plan of action is actually acted upon, then — and only then — this might appear as something other than a cynical bit of PR spin.

7. “If you shopped at Target during the time the hackers were harvesting PINs, card numbers, and the rest, I highly recommend that you change your PIN and watch your account like a hawk.” It’s a pain in the neck to change your PIN, but it beats the alternative.