MAMA TOLD YOU NOT TO SHACK UP

This weekend I read an interesting story in the NY Times about the reality versus the common beliefs about cohabitation before marriage and the divorce rate.  More than half of us now live with our partner before marriage in the belief that it will be the best testing ground for the match. In fact, some young folks today refuse to marry unless they live together first.

However, this new study shows:

... that belief is contradicted by experience. Couples who cohabit before marriage (and especially before an engagement or an otherwise clear commitment) tend to be less satisfied with their marriages — and more likely to divorce — than couples who do not. These negative outcomes are called the cohabitation effect.


So that part of the study has been the headline on the news with very little else discussed.  But the study had more to disclose about the reasons people began their cohabitation - and that is the real explanation for the higher divorce rate.

...what researchers call “sliding, not deciding.” Moving from dating to sleeping over to sleeping over a lot to cohabitation can be a gradual slope, one not marked by rings or ceremonies or sometimes even a conversation. Couples bypass talking about why they want to live together and what it will mean.


What the researchers found was the couples had differing, unspoken ideas about what living together meant and over time their lives became more and more entwined (furniture, pets, friends) to the point that they married as a sort of default.  When marriage didn't satisfy it isn't because of living together per se, it is because :

What men and women do agree on, however, is that their standards for a live-in partner are lower than they are for a spouse.

Many young people in therapy wish they hadn’t sunk years of their 20s into relationships that would have lasted only months had they not been living together. Others want to feel committed to their partners, yet they are confused about whether they have consciously chosen their mates. Founding relationships on convenience or ambiguity can interfere with the process of claiming the people we love. A life built on top of “maybe you’ll do” simply may not feel as dedicated as a life built on top of the “we do” of commitment or marriage.


When Tom and I decided to live together there was a mixture of the slipping into it (he was broke and needed a new place to live) and the commitment to marriage.  We knew that was were we headed but  it was too soon to jump there.  I think it is important that couples really talk about the reasons they are moving in together.  It should be a step, not a slide.

MOMS PACKING KILLER LUNCHES!

Just in time for back to school shopping, another study has been published to make mothers crazy.

Nine out of 10 school lunches sent from home reach potentially unsafe temperatures by the time kids eat them — even if an ice-pack was included. 

Ninety percent of the 705-preschooler sack lunches tested by University of Texas scientists had risen to temperatures considered too high to prevent the growth of bacteria, the researchers reported Monday in the journal Pediatrics. Unsafe, as the researchers defined it, was anything that sat for more than two hours between 39 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit. But that doesn't mean kids are actually getting sick.

So - the lunches, even with an ice pack, even with multiple ice packs, are rising to levels where bacteria could grow.  “This is a provocative study,” said Dr. Michael Green, a pediatrician with the division of infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and a professor of pediatrics and surgery at the School of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. “Their findings certainly raise concern. But there is a missing piece: it doesn’t tell you what this does to the relative risk of disease.”


Ya think?  How many generations of us have survived sack lunches? 

And of course one of the answers to this "problem" is to buy shelf-stable foods - expensive, preservative filled and not eco-friendly.  Or to buy school lunches, which we all know are nutritionally problematic in most places.

As usual, common sense has to be the rule.  Most food born illness is from improper handling or it has been exposed to bacteria at the growing or packing site.  If we are safe at home, washing produce and packing lunches with some care, our kids are not going to get sick from them.

And don't forget to pack the little love notes. 

FRIDAY FAST ONES

1.)  We have read the salacious details, heard the re-enactments, gawked at the photos and seen, as usual,  that Gloria Allred found a way to get involved in the Wiener story.  Oh the puns and double entendres - the writers have had a field day.  Hurrah - another sex scandal so we can continue to avoid delving into the real, hard issues.  The media outlets are not even making an effort to seem like they care about anything but frivolity and titillation.  When Pelosi had her scheduled press conference on the day the congressman had announced he would resign, this is what happened per the Talking Points blog when she made her opening remark:

"As usual we're here to talk about jobs, about protecting Medicare and protecting the middle class. If you're here to ask a question about Congressman Weiner, I won't be answering any."


If you thought disappointed news networks decided then to make do with the other items on her agenda, you'd be wrong. All three of the major cable nets -- CNN, MSNBC, and Fox -- all cut away right then.

I continue to believe that the media is the biggest contributor to the stupidity of the country and the decay of our government.

2.)  Since we are on the subject...crusaders against male circumcision (intactivists)  want parents to choose not to circumcise their sons AND they want the government to prohibit circumcision including  punishment for adults involved in circumcisions. 

We did not circumcise our son shortly after birth because my husband is not circumcised and he preferred not to do it to our son.  I went along with his wishes.  However, our son had to be circumcised at age 10 because of urinary issues.  He suffered from a problem a small percentage of uncircumcised males have and it had nothing to do with not being clean (which is what everyone always says is all it takes to maintain an uncut penis.)

So if we are going to say parents can't choose to have this procedure performed for medical or religious reasons - then, as raised in an opinion piece on CNN - we should ban the piercing of baby girl's ears.  Ear piercing is painful and it carries MORE complications than circumcising.

And that is the problem with all this poking our noses in other people's business - if you don't like it, don't do it.  Please feel free to let us know your opinion, but it is not your place to legislate based on your beliefs.

3.)  One more highlight from our graduation celebration and then I promise I will stop.  I managed to snap this reaction when Ally opened her gift.

We had completely fooled her into thinking she was not going to get what she asked for - an iTouch.  She really wanted an iPhone which we said we couldn't do for her and the iTouch came up briefly as an alternative.  She is aware of our finances and so I think she had given up on the idea that she would get a gift beyond the grad party.

So fun to surprise our kids, isn't it!


4.)  On Monday Ally and I spend the day at San Francisco State for a new student orientation.  We will learn more about the campus, the programs and meet with her advisor.  She will register for her classes at the end of the session.  This sounds like a very helpful program for new students entering into the complicated morass of college.  I am looking forward to it - except that it starts at 8am and I work the night before...I'm not as young as I once was and leaving the house 6 hours after I get home will be tough!

Ally is nervous about the orientation, meeting people, looking right - but she is excited to purchase an official college sweatshirt and decals for our cars.

FRIDAY FAST ONES

1.)  I love to watch Rachel Maddow because she is so smart and her stories are well researched.  She is polite and professional with her guests; she asked tough questions but does not pander or put them down.  Sometimes I watch Keith Olbermann, too.  I think he is also very smart and his stories have a lot of punch, but I have always felt that he is too bombastic in his style of reporting (okay, I'll just say it, too much like Fox.)  It makes me uncomfortable.  So I was really please that he decided to stop doing one of his nightly segments called Worst Persons in the World.  In response to the Jon Stewart Rally to Restore Sanity,  Olbermann said "the overall message that the tone needs to change, that the volume needs to change, was not lost on any of us. The anger in this news hour was not an original part of it, nor was it an artifice that we added to it."

Good for you Mr. Olbermann!

2.)  My son has made a big decision.  He was very reluctant to share it because he was concerned about our response.  He called it his "early mid-life crisis."  He is 23!  He has realized that although he has planned for many years to become a high school math teacher and is currently finishing his math major, that it is his minor that has taken over his true interest.

He has a minor in Service Learning.  He has been involved with the Service Learning Institute at CSUMB since his freshman year and has been a student teacher for the past 2 years.  (If you click the link that is Zac in the photo!)  So he has decided that he wants to pursue a Masters degree in Equity and Social Justice in Education.  I have been helping him research degree programs as he is incredibly busy completing his senior  capstone project and teaching and getting his butt kicked by Analytical Algebra.

I can't tell you just how proud I am of this guy.  He is a caring, giving young man and he will be a wonderful teacher. 

LET'S GET THIS STRAIGHT

  It would be very helpful to the debate if the media would stop referring to the proposed Islamic Community Center in New York as a mosque.  IT IS NOT A MOSQUE.  Calling it a mosque was the idea of the fear and hate mongers on the right.  It is a community center with basketball courts, swimming pool, a culinary school, meeting rooms and a room for prayer because Muslims pray several times a day.  It is not within sight of "ground zero" and has nothing to do with it except that they are planning to have a memorial in the center for the lives lost there. 

Terrorists took down the Twin Towers, and the Murrah Building.  We don't need to label them by the religions they allegedly lived by, but by the acts they perpetrated.  Terror is directed at everyone, spares no one.

FRIDAY FAST ONES

I have never understood why so many blue collar folks identify themselves as conservatives. Over and over again leaders of the Republican Party show themselves to be people who think you are a loser if you are not rich like them. Take Rush Limbaugh who thinks it's just fine that health care, like a beach house, is only available to people who can afford it.

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No matter what Tiger did and how many women he did it to, it is not NEWS as in capital letters kind of news. When NBC is using TMZ (a gossip show) as a source for stories, then it is gossip. There are more important things for us to focus on. The more the media plays into this glorification of celebrity and gossip - the stupider society is going to become. This really must change.

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Okay, enough of the cranky pants. I am now officially done with my shopping and decorating and ready to move on with the festivities. I am going to make CDs of some Christmas music for a few family members to send along with biscotti and some fancied up almonds, specifically: Honey Lacquered Almonds with Rosemary & Black Pepper. I have a lot of wrapping to do and a couple of mosaics that need to be finished off.

I addressed all my holiday cards and letters last night while watching Glee. Tom said he wants an autographed picture of Sue Silvester for his office. Ally and I found one that says "WWSSD?" that we are going to print for him! And if you don't watch Glee - catch up while it is on hiatus. Great writing and musical numbers.

Memorial Day

My parents sent this to me a couple of months ago. I thought it was a good day to share it.

Ed Freeman

You're an 19 year old kid. You're critically wounded, and dying in the jungle in the Ia Drang Valley, 11-14-1965, LZ X-ray, Vietnam. Your infantry unit is outnumbered 8 - 1, and the enemy fire is so intense, from 100 or 200 yards away, that your own Infantry Commander has ordered the Medi-Vac helicopters to stop coming in.


You're lying there, listening to the enemy machine guns, and you know you're not getting out. Your family is 1/2 way around the world, 12,000 miles away, and you'll never see them again. As the world starts to fade in and out, you know this is the day.


Then, over the machine gun noise, you faintly hear that sound of a helicopter, and you look up to see an un-armed Huey, but it doesn't seem real, because no Medi-Vac markings are on it.


Ed Freeman is coming for you. He's not Medi-Vac, so it's not his job, but he's flying his Huey down into the machine gun fire, after the Medi-Vacs were ordered not to come.


He's coming anyway.


And he drops it in, and sits there in the machine gun fire, as they load 2 or 3 of you on board. Then he flies you up and out through the gunfire, to the Doctors and Nurses..


And, he kept coming back.... 13 more times..... And took about 30 of you and your buddies out, who would never have gotten out.


Medal of Honor Recipient, Ed Freeman, died last Wednesday at the age of 80, in Boise, ID . . . May God rest his soul!


I bet you didn't hear about this hero's passing, but we sure were told a whole bunch about some Hip-Hop coward beating the crap out of his "girlfriend.”
Medal of Honor Winner Ed Freeman!


Shame on the American Media

MORE RANDOM THINGS

Finally got my computer online yesterday - four and a half days with no internet gave me some book and newspaper reading time, but I found out how frequently I use the internet for things. i I could barely make a grocery shopping list.

I watched the Jon Stewart vs. CNBC/ Jim Cramer shows on TIVO. Then watched John King interviewing Dick Cheney and wished that Stewart could have interviewed Cheney. Why is it that the "entertainment" side of the media is more direct and assertive in interviews than the journalists? Remember when "The View" was the first to call out the Republicans on all the lies during the campaign - then all the news outlets finally started discussing the factual distortions on both sides of the campaigns. Someone needs to challenge Cheney or any other representative of the former administration when they suggest they had nothing to do with our current financial crisis. Jon Stewart would have, and it would have been entertaining, too.

I really have mixed feelings about the cutting of health care for undocumented immigrants in California due to the huge cuts in the state budget:

After letting go of social workers, cutting mental health services and watching a delivery room built to handle 120 births a month accommodate 240, there were few other options, said Contra Costa Health Services Director William Walker."We've never had this crisis before," said Walker. "We've tried to carefully slice what we thought we could without cutting off our ability to respond. Now we're looking at bad choices among bad choices."

Hospitals receiving Medicaid funds must provide emergency medical care, despite immigration status, but primary medical care is not guaranteed.

It bothers me that low income people have difficulty getting the services they need because of the cost of helping undocumented workers, it also bothers me that we make it so hard for people to come to this country legally to take the low paying jobs they are willing to take. I suspect that having their yard work done and their houses cleaned were some of the first things people dropped when their portfolios went bust. Which means there are a lot of undocumented workers in real trouble right now.

On the other hand - hundreds of teachers, counselors and other staff have been cut from our local schools and something has got to give. Somewhere.

We watched a wonderful movie that I hope will not be overlooked on video - The Great Buck Howard. It stars John Malcovich as a magician/mentalist, touring the smallest of venues of the country with his newly hired assistant played by Colin Hanks. Hanks is trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life and Malcovich is looking to get back into a brighter limelight. It is a smart, charming comedy, Malcovich really makes his character ring true, both as a smarmy show biz veteran and as a complex, kind human being with some real talent.