"At the brics info session."

  "Let me check, I jotted down some non-on-point comments from each of them." 

  "She said relations were going better before those two men married each other in front of everyone.  And that, that wasn't a religious judgment as much as tangling socialism with a need to be fluid in the politics of war." 

  "Thank you." 

  Some were more morally outraged.  As they were at priests sexually abusing people.  "Bad example", "deplorable", "wretched precendent", "the end of civilization". 

  Others were "proud" of the "fearlessness", "dedication to truth", "pushing the envelop", "advancing the cause". 

  For most people it was a blip in the passage of time.  One more person carrying on as a unique individual in bigger establishments.  Maybe it was possible to be professional and whatever else people were into. 

  But it also brought to the fore deeper issues around romance's place and some sort of divisions between children and grown ups.  These issues were important to people and could raise the temperature in same old, same old conversations. 

  In some ways "the act" happening so publically re-ignited some passion for understanding cause and politics and how both are personal (based on belief) and can be "group".  And begged questions about influence and power in relation to Establishment. 

  It seemed timed with "kitchen table" and "grassroots" as a sociopolitical happening. 

  "Don't be rude," a barrister said to a man blocking the door to a restaurant.  "Bleeding heart liberal," the man accused.  "Just really hungry," the barrister said tiredly.  This seemed the most reasonable response to people and events not life and death.  (i)It's all happening in this crazy world, but we need to keep functioning.  Well, I do anyway.(i)

  "Well, it's not a handicap!  It's something you chose to do and forced on everyone else." A friendly-enough was overheard saying to the gay politician who'd locked himself in a wheelchair lift.  "Your exceptionalism is your ego and your ego will be the death of you."  The man seemed like a body in that space of suspension in a rollercoaster dip.  The momentum of public spectacle having ebbed and the reality of cause meeting general setting in.  "I care about you as a person.  God, a human being.  It would be morally worse to off yourself." The UP button was pressed.