Since when is a CBS show handling tough issues better than TWO HBO shows combined?

It’s notable that “The Good Wife” was able to deal with buzzwords like “race” and “Ferguson” with more seriousness AND levity this past Sunday than TWO shows on HBO featuring young urban professionals…"The Good Wife", which is know for having many guest stars, always used its limited time to portray three dimensional characters, most notably Lemond Bishop. Bishop, played by Mike Colter, is a black drug kingpin on the show. While his interactions with the lawyers play with the line between legal and illegal businesses, his presence is not defined by his job. Emotionally charged scenes where viewers aren't sure what Bishop wants or what he'll do (see every scene with Kalinda this scene) are underscored by how normal - and dare I say, well-rounded - his life is. He fights with his girlfriend! His son plays soccer! His son plays piano! 

In contrast, the few people of color featured on shows such as "Girls" and "Looking" are not assumed to have rich lives. Disagree? Fine. Name the people of color featured on “Girls”. Now name the characters they played. I’ll wait.

The Delusion of the Knowledge Worker

This line jumped at me during some late-night reading of The Washington Post: "For nearly half a century, since the hippies first flocked to Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco has been associated more with cultural and lifestyle liberalism than with such New Dealish concerns as advancing workers rights."

So it is with every American city with a young and educated professional workforce. This should be called "à la carte liberalism". Young professionals can discuss freedom, maybe even dignity, but can they advocate for equity outside of a dinner conversation? Do they want to?

Your answers to those questions depend on how you define labor and laborers. Many young professionals acknowledge that domestic workers and retail workers do hard work, but we don't really respect their work. "Home health aide" and "cashier" are not positions to aspire to, so it's not surprising that any opposition to increasing their wages and benefits has an undertone of "Why are we focusing on them as opposed to ___?". Our society is more proud of an unpaid intern at a literary journal or a tech startup than a cashier at McDonald's. We still believe that the positions of these "knowledge workers" implies greater professional traction than they will ever get and if the reality was different, intern lawsuits wouldn't make so much news.

Wired published a piece last April on the "Internet-enabled intimacy" that the sharing economy has catalyzed, but I find that anything Internet-enabled is by definition less substantive and less immersive, whether it's communication or shopping. The magazine called this new intimacy an economic and cultural breakthrough, but not every breakthrough is positive in the way that not every talented person is kind. Here's the relevant quote: