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A recent study (USA Today poll) says that nearly 40% of Americans feel marriage is obsolete and that only 54% are married, compared to 72% in 1960. This doesn’t surprise me at all as I believe the current state of marriage needs to be seriously examined!
Let me first say that I believe that true love and passion are real and authentic, but many times, marriage is not. I feel that too many married couples are pretending to be happy. I personally know many couples who are not truly happy in their committed, monogamous marriages.
The fact is that the old model of marriage is clearly not working as evidenced by the divorce statistics, which indicate that over half of marriages end in divorce. Some researchers say that at least 75% of marriages are ailing or unhappy. For African Americans, divorce is the end result for two out of three Black marriages. When I found out this information, it was startling to me, and over the last few years, I have been studying about marriage and divorce to understand why these challenges exist today.
Most marriages, on the surface, seem like a typical traditional marriage, but many of them are truly unhappy. This leads me to believe that marriage may be in a process of transitioning from our “parent’s generation” marriage to a type of more contemporary or modern marriage that will allow people to be more successful in their marriages today. However, many of us, including me, do not know how to create a marriage relationship that is successful, for both the short- and long-term. I’ve written about my challenges in my own marriage in my bestseller, Why I Love Men: The Joys of Dating, because I’m one that respects the institution of marriage, but needed real solutions to the problems we experienced that ultimately led to divorce.
Many will agree that marriage can provide convenience and stability; however, with too much routine and definition, marriage can be the death of a romantic love relationship. Too many people have squeezed the love affair out of their marriage and have allowed bills, money, and/or petty arguments to block the romantic aspects of their relationship.
Unmarried women feel sorry for married women because they tend to be stuck in a rut or routine. Married women feel sorry for unmarried woman because they are alone. However, we ALL want both excitement and stability in our relationships whether we’re married or unmarried.
Why Do People Get Married?
Romantic love has been the primary motive for getting married, and it remains so even today. However, there are other factors that cause individuals to marry. Years ago there were more traditional reasons for getting married.
The rules of traditional relationships require that you be emotionally and sexually exclusive to one person forever. Therefore, many people in committed relationships are monogamous by default, not by choice. We learn through society that monogamy is what everyone is doing, and thus it is what’s expected in relationships. We are socialized to believe that true happiness can be achieved only in monogamous relationships. Even though this goes against many people’s natural inclinations, they accept and buy into it. However, many folks are realizing that it is unrealistic to expect one person to fulfill all of their needs – emotional, sexual, spiritual, psychological, intellectual, financial, romantic, etc.
Some people have spent the majority of their life dealing with the fact that they have struggled to be monogamous and keep their desires under lock and key. They have often found themselves in situations of betrayal, cheating or unfaithfulness. Well, the strongest argument for non-monogamy is that one person cannot fulfill all of our needs for an entire lifetime. In fact, for some people who have great physical or emotional needs, it is unrealistic for one person to fulfill all of those needs and desires. This often sets us up for disappointment when a partner can’t meet all of our expectations.
Each of us has to figure out what we truly need and want from a relationship; Is it monogamy or commitment or both? Do we want to marry or just live together? Nowadays, we even have couples who marry and do NOT live together. There are so many alternative relationship models that need to be explored. I’m asking… who’s willing to have real dialogue about the current state of marriage? I’d be more than willing to participate in this discussion!
Thank you J J Smith^5^
Jobless benefits will run out for 2 million people during the holiday season unless they are renewed by a Congress that’s focusing more attention on a quarrel over preserving tax cuts for people making more than $200,000 a year.
It’s looking iffy at best whether Congress will renew jobless benefits averaging $310 per week nationwide that are presently claimed by almost 5 million people who have been out of work for more than six months.
An extension of jobless benefits enacted this summer expires Dec. 1, and on Thursday, a bill to extend them for three months failed in the House.
Democrats brought the bill to the floor under fast-track rules that required a two-thirds vote to pass. Republicans opposed the legislation because they were denied a chance to attach spending cuts, so the measure fell despite winning a 258-154 majority.
In Thursday’s vote, 21 Republicans joined with Democrats in favor. Eleven moderate-to-conservative Democrats opposed the bill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., promised to bring the measure back to the floor after Thanksgiving to try to enact an emergency measure that extend benefits at least through the holidays.
President Barack Obama is praising comedian Jon Stewart’s upcoming “Rally to Restore Sanity,” saying it may help instill more “courtesy” in American political life.
Speaking Wednesday in Richmond, Virginia, the president welcomed the idea behind the October 30 rally, which Stewart described as an effort for people who expect common sense and courtesy in daily interactions.
The event is a thinly veiled dig at right-wing icon Glenn Beck’s “Restore America” march on Washington’s National Mall last month.
“I was amused,” Obama said of ‘The Daily Show’ host’s rally.
“They may not be following every single issue, because they just don’t have time. But they are just expecting some common sense and some courtesy in how people interact,” he said about average people simply “going about their business,” “looking after their families” and “working hard every day.”
“And having those voices lifted up is really important.”
After Stewart’s announcement, Stewart’s alter-ego Stephen Colbert used his own TV show on Comedy Central to invite Americans to attend another rally, which he dubbed the “March to Keep Fear Alive.”
There are a number of holy books or sacred texts in the world. They constitute the core of some of the world’s major religions. It is generally thought to be, at the very least, simple good manners for people who have a strong belief in one of these holy books not to derogate, at least publicly, the holy book reverenced by another group. And most certainly it is thought to be but plain decency not to deliberately and ostentatiously set out to abuse, mock, defile or destroy the holy book of another group. For example, by burning a pile of them publicly after alerting the world to your deliberately disrespectful intent.
This is, indeed, what one cunning or dim-witted, rabid or naive, publicity genius or blundering innocent, self-proclaimed Christian pastor, Terry Jones, declared he was going to do with some 200 copies of the Koran Saturday, being the ninth anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. That announcement set in motion an extraordinary story and one which opens troubling questions about the war on terror and the current engagement of Western military in Afghanistan and Iraq.
First, the story tells us that in some rather difficult-to-articulate sense, this war has taken on aspects that are fundamentally not serious. When extraneous, or circumstantial, or ancillary matters occupy centre stage, it is a clear sign, by definition, that the main business has been sidelined.
And what or who is more extraneous or ancillary, more truly irrelevant, than Pastor Jones? How could a genuine world issue, of cardinal depth and significance, be hostage to such a trivial player, to a pathetic and obvious publicity ploy by a man the world had never heard of?
Why is anyone paying attention to this guy? He’s not a new version of Billy Graham or even Jerry Falwell. He has no earned iconic standing. He’s a non-entity of a splinter church with a piddling 30 or 50 followers. What he does or intended to do is of no social, symbolic or geopolitical consequence whatsoever.
But what was really odd was how the great and powerful of the world reacted. All week, he was being beseech-ed by the mighty of the Earth to stop what he and his little band of true believers were proposing to do. There was the Vatican, there was Tony Blair. In Canada, Stephen Harper, Peter McKay and Michael Ignatieff weighed in. And General David Petraeus, the overlord of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, astonishingly proclaimed that Terry Jones’ stunt would undermine the “total effort” of the war in Afghanistan.
This sideline preacher’s gruesome little barbecue would jeopardize, in other words, the main front in the war on terror. In fact, Barack Obama himself has been publicly pleading with Jones to put off the event. And most tellingly, Obama’s Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, undoubtedly under orders from the White House, went into direct personal discussion and negotiation with the Florida-based pastor to get him to change his plans.
What a spectacle. How did a publicity stunt in Florida become a fulcrum for success or failure in the war on terror?
There is something profoundly unserious here, undignified and immensely off base. The first General of the United States, and the Secretary of Defense of the greatest war machine in the history of the world are both deferring to some fringe evangelist for fear that he might … what? Might lose the war for them? If this is the splinter the war on terror is hanging on to then it is, I fear, a house of cards in both theatres.
Nor is it irrelevant that by Friday another, better known exhibitionist, Donald Trump, had inserted himself into this story. “Unreality” doesn’t come in single doses. So now (the cast was assembling), it was the Imam, the Pastor and the Donald. It’s like a parody apocalypse.
Nine years out from the horrors of Sept. 11, 2001, there will be people marking this day with all the solemnity that grief and memory can bring to it. There will be military families ruminating on their sacrifices. I’m not sure how the weird, absurd and — I think — irrational events out of Florida fit with these observances. The whole saga has usurped the great messages of determination and purpose that filled the months and days after 9/11.
by Rex Murphy
NURSES
THE NUMBER OF REGISTERED NURSES IS EXPECTED TO SWELL TO 3.2 MILLION BY 2018, ACCUNTING FOR APPROXIMATELY 581,500 NEW JOBS, ACCORDING TO THE BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS. That’s up from 2.6 million today, and it represents the largest overall growth projection out of all occupations in the U.S. economy, for good reason.
NETWORK SYSTEMS & DATA ANALYSTS
This occupation’s full title is “network systems and data communication analysts.” And while it’s a mouthful, it is worth remembering as it’s the #2 fastest growing occupation in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In simpler terms, these analysts are the folks who design and build the systems that we use to connect to the web, from work or home.
SOFTWARE ENGINEERS
WHAT WOULD ALL THAT PLANNING AND DESIGN BY NETWORK AND DATA ANALYSTS BE WORTH WITHOUT SOFTWARE? Not a whole lot, which explains why the BLS expects the cadre of software engineers and application developers to swell to 689,000 by 2018 (up from 514,800 in 2008) Whether they are building business software, constructing a operating system, developing games, or designing mobile apps, software engineers have a wide array of career avenue to consider.
BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERS
Biomedical engineering is expected to be the fastest growing occupation, with a whopping growth project is 72% between 2008 and 2018, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It’s not much of a surprise, given that this field lies at the nexus of technology and health care, two ballooning industries within the U.S. economy. The immense growth of biomedical engineering will be driven by the demand for new treatments for diseases and the increasingly higher expectations of aging patients to maintain an active lifestyle.
ACCOUNTANTS & AUDITORS
While number crunching and bean counting has certainly not fallen out of style in recent memory, the economic fallout of the past few years has placed renewed focus on financial regulation.
VETERINARIANS
Our love for the dogs, cats, and fish in our lives truly knows no bounds. Pet care was one of the only sectors of the retail industry that grew during the recession.
On Thursday the US Senate confirmed Elena Kagan 63-37 to become an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, with a handful of Republicans joining almost all Democrats in making her the fourth woman to serve on the high court.
When the court’s new term starts in October, Ms. Kagan, 50, will join Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor to make up the first three-woman bloc in the court’s history.
Fifty-eight Democrats and independents as well as five Republicans voted for Ms. Kagan. Thirty-six Republicans and one Democrat, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, voted against the nominee. The five Republicans who supported Ms. Kagan were Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Richard Lugar of Indiana, and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.
The degree to which a culture is evolved is demonstrated by the degree to which it labels a being or an action……”shameful” or “guilty”.
Efforts to legalize marijuana for recreational use are gaining momentum in Washington state and Colorado, despite fierce opposition from the federal government and a decades-long cultural battle over America’s most commonly used illicit drug.
Officials in Washington state on Friday said an initiative to legalize pot has enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in November. In Colorado, officials are likely this week to make a similar determination about an initiative there.
Supporters are prepared to possibly spend millions of dollars ahead of the November ballot, when they hope a strong voter turnout, particularly among youth, for the U.S. presidential election will aid their cause.
“Whether it’s make or break depends on what public opinion does after 2012, but in terms of voter turnout this is the best year to do it,” said Alison Holcomb, director of New Approach Washington, the initiative’s sponsor.
While 16 states, including Washington and Colorado, along with the nation’s capital, now allow marijuana use for medical purposes, cannabis remains an illegal narcotic under U.S. law – and public opinion is sharply divided on the merits of full legalization.
California voters turned back a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana for recreational use in 2010, in part because of concerns about how production and sale of the drug would be regulated.
Undeterred, supporters of the Washington state initiative say it represents the “grown-up” approach to legalization.
Sales would only be allowed to adults 21 and older through marijuana-only stores licensed by the state Liquor Control Board, which would also oversee production and processing of the drug. Laws on drunken driving would be amended to include maximum blood content thresholds for THC, the main psychoactive element in pot plants.
Colorado already has a robust regulatory system for medical marijuana that includes a registry of over 80,000 card-carrying patients and rules governing how physicians and distributors operate. Here, too, legalization advocates are stressing a rational regulatory approach.
“Voters aren’t being asked to imagine as much as they are in other states, they have seen that marijuana can be regulated and it doesn’t result in significant problems,” said Mason Tvert, co-director of the Colorado-based Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.
Organizers of the Washington effort have collected over $1.1 million in campaign funds, with $250,000 of that coming from Progressive Insurance chairman Peter Lewis, public disclosure records show.
Loren Collingwood, senior researcher for the nonpartisan Washington Poll run by the University of Washington, said the initiative could pass, but that backers must spend between $2 million and $4 million to run a competitive campaign.
A poll done by the university in October found 48 percent of Washington residents support the idea of pot legalization, but that was not tied to any particular initiative.
“If young voters turn out in droves like they did in 2008 or even start to approach those numbers … then I think this will pass, but they very well may not,” Collingwood said.
Pot legalization supporters have argued for decades that prohibition has failed to curb pot use, and that the policy enriches drug cartels, hurts casual users and deprives governments of a potentially lucrative source of tax revenue.