"I am the mother of a 13-year-old boy, which is like living with the single-cell protozoa version of a husband."

"Here's what my son wants out of life: macaroni and cheese, a video game, and Kim Kardashian. Have you ever seen Kim Kardashian angry? I didn't think so. You've seen Kim Kardashian smile, wiggle, and make a sex tape. Female anger terrifies men. I know it seems unfair that you have to work around a man's fear and insecurity in order to get married -- but actually, it's perfect, since working around a man's fear and insecurity is big part of what you'll be doing as a wife."

From a weirdly hateful HuffPo piece called "Why You're Not Married," by TV writer Tracy McMillan, who "lives in Los Angeles with her 13-year-old son." You know, get a life, so you don't have to talk about your teenage son. Or just shut up. He's not your husband or anything like a husband, and if you think he is, just shut up.

From the ex-governor and his federal judge wife, who are separating after 40 years of marriage: "Please do not hesitate to include both of us in social occasions as we will not find it awkward or uncomfortable."

Ed and Majorie Rendell are breaking up, but please don't think you have to exclude one or the other as you plan your parties and other networking opportunities.

Are they Democrats or Republicans? Here's a clue: neither the word Democrat or Republican appears in the linked article. So?

They're Democrats! Duh! Don't you know how to read the news?

"'Frank Capra would have had a field day with the life of Gabrielle Giffords,' Robert B. Reich mused..."

"... as guests began to gather for the wedding on Nov. 10 of Representative Gabrielle Giffords and Cmdr. Mark E. Kelly."

The NYT calls attention to its 2007 wedding story.

... Mr. Reich continued his musings on the Capra-like scene. “Not ‘Capra corn’ exactly,” he said. “Mark and Gabby do embody American values. They thrive on doing the people’s work.”

"Do you dream of a fairytale wedding?"/'I think I’m well beyond the fairytale marriage stage."

Piers Morgan inanely interrogating Condoleezza Rice about marriage.

Why does Ross Douthat use marriage (bad marriage) as an analogy for the way media deals with Sarah Palin?

"The whole business felt less like an episode in American political history than a scene from a particularly toxic marriage — more 'Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' than 'The Making of the President.' The press and Palin have been at war with each other almost from the first, but their mutual antipathy looks increasingly like co-dependency: they can’t get along, but they can’t live without each other either."

Why does it feel like a marriage to Ross Douthat? I'll offer 2 possible answers. See if you get it right:

1. Because Sarah Palin is a woman.

2. Because Sarah Palin is a conservative.

The correct answer is #2. If Sarah Palin were a liberal, using the marriage analogy to talk about a female politician would have been recognized as too sexist.

And, yes, I realize Douthat is supposed to be the conservative columnist at the New York Times.

"Is marriage responsible for turning the beastly male into a well-behaved husband?"

"Or are the upstanding men the ones who marry in the first place?"

An old mystery. The linked article is about a study that shows there's combined causality: Marriage tends to make men more upstanding citizens and more upstanding male citizens are more likely to find and commit to a mate.

Related mysteries: Should we incentivize marriage and pressure men into marriage in order to make society better for all of us? Must men marry women to get this social improvement or will gay marriage work too? Should women be enthusiastic about performing the function of improving men? Is the restriction of marriage to opposite-sex couples a way to enlist unwilling women in the social enterprise of improving men?

CORRECTION: I'd originally written "same-sex" in that last question.

"I’ve never been to Vermont. How can I sing a song about a place I’ve never been to?"

"What is the significance of pennies in a stream? What are ski tows?”

Margaret Whiting — who sang "Moonlight in Vermont" — has died at the age of 86.

In her later years, Ms. Whiting was known to many as the unlikely wife of Jack Wrangler (originally John Stillman), a star of gay pornographic films in the 1970s who went on to become a cabaret and theater producer.

Ms. Whiting and Mr. Wrangler, 22 years her junior, met in the 1970s, lived together for many years and married in 1994. She wrote about their relationship in an autobiography, “It Might as Well Be Spring,” saying it was based on similar interests and mutual respect, not sex. When they first became involved, he told her, “I’m gay,” to which she replied, “Only around the edges, dear.”

The answer to the question how to sing about Vermont was: Use your imagination.

"I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States..."

"... against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

That's the wording of the oath of office taken by members of Congress, used yesterday as Chief Justice John Roberts "presided over a closed-door ceremony in the offices of the soon-to-be House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, to swear in his staff a day before Republicans are scheduled to take control of the chamber."

I'm linking to the NYT, where the first comment is "did he cry?" Boehner, famously, cries easily, and I think the oath actually is the sort of thing that would move him to tears. Read it. Seriously. Does it reach you in a deep place that gives rise to tears? If not, why not?

How many members of Congress take that oath with mental reservation and purpose of evasion and don't even feel a twinge of conscience when they say those words? How many members of Congress take that oath and it's just words — written more than a hundred years ago — and they don't even have a spark of awareness of what they are promising to do, so the purpose of evasion doesn't even flicker across a synapse?

IN THE COMMENTS: The Crack Emcee says:

And, after all that, you're surprised how I talk about marriage?

Strangely, the news that Russ Feingold will teach a course at Marquette Law School got me looking back at a post I wrote in 2005 about a lecture he gave at Wisconsin Law School, and I see that the lecture focused on the congressional oath and I brought up the issue of the marital oath:

I would never have said this out loud, but I couldn't help thinking how interesting it was that Feingold shaped his whole lecture around the sanctity of the oath, when just a few days ago he announced that he was getting a divorce, his second. Was I the only one who thought how strange it was to hear a man piously invoke a passionate fidelity to an oath when he had -- so conspicuously -- gone back on the marriage oath twice?\

But I like Senator Feingold. I do think he's a good man. I don't presume to know what happens to people in their marriages, and I am divorced myself. Nevertheless, he could have discussed his devotion to the Constitution from some perspective other than the fact that he'd sworn an oath. Taking an oath to the Constitution, after all, is not the strongest reason to support it.

Is your partner helping you with your "self-expansion"?

It's the secret to a happy marriage, according to some experts:

While the notion of self-expansion may sound inherently self-serving, it can lead to stronger, more sustainable relationships, [says Professor Gary W. Lewandowski Jr.,].

“If you’re seeking self-growth and obtain it from your partner, then that puts your partner in a pretty important position,” he explains. “And being able to help your partner’s self-expansion would be pretty pleasing to yourself.”

The concept explains why people are delighted when dates treat them to new experiences, like a weekend away. But self-expansion isn’t just about exotic experiences. Individuals experience personal growth through their partners in big and small ways. It happens when they introduce new friends, or casually talk about a new restaurant or a fascinating story in the news.

Introducing you to a fascinating story in the news? The secret to happiness is, perhaps, marrying a blogger!

Beautiful and 23...

... Crystal Harris is marrying an 84-year-old man.

ADDED: Or maybe she's 24.

While she was studying psychology at San Diego State University, she started modelling and was noticed by Playboy. She met Hefner on Halloween in 2008 and started dating him in January 2009 while he was also dating identical twin glamour models Kristina and Karissa Shannon. But he ended his relationship with the twins in January this year and has remained monogamous to Crystal since. Crystal once said that she believes she and Hefner were able to bond because she lost a long-time boyfriend in Iraq and he was going through a break up with Holly Madison, whom he dated for 8 years.

It all fits together!

"He bounds into a room... He doesn’t walk in, he explodes in."/"She’s such a force... She rocks back and forth on her feet as if she can’t contain her energy as she’s talking to you."

The story of their marrying is told in the NYT "Vows" column, but both of them already had spouses when they fell in love. So why did the NYT present their story as if it were something to be celebrated? Or is the "Vows" column more complex than that." Okay. First, let's look at some of the details of the story:

The connection was immediate, but platonic. In fact, as they became friends so did their spouses. There were dinners, Christmas parties and even family vacations together.

So [Carol Anne] Riddell was surprised to find herself eagerly looking for [John] Partilla at school events — and missing him when he wasn’t there. “I didn’t admit to anyone how I felt,” she said. “To even think about it was disruptive and disloyal.”

Ms. Riddell said she remembered crying in the shower, asking: “Why am I being punished? Why did someone throw him in my path when I can’t have him?”

In May 2008, Mr. Partilla invited her for a drink at O’Connell’s, a neighborhood bar. She said she knew something was up, because they had never met on their own before.

“I’ve fallen in love with you,” he recalled saying to her. She jumped up, knocking a glass of beer into his lap, and rushed out of the bar. Five minutes later, he said, she returned and told him, “I feel exactly the same way.”

Before sleeping together, they told their spouses, and Partilla considered himself to be doing the "terrible thing as honorably as I could." Partilla then, as the NYT phrased it  "moved out of his home, reluctantly leaving his three children." Then he came back, then left, back and forth, feeling lots of "pain."

The pain he had predicted pervaded both of their lives as they faced distraught children and devastated spouses, while the grapevine buzzed and neighbors ostracized them.

“He said, ‘Remind me every day that the kids will be O.K.,’ ” Ms. Riddell recalled. “I would say the kids are going to be great, and we’ll spend the rest of our lives making it so.”

Riddell "came to realize" that her predicament "wasn’t a punishment, it was a gift." And in this framing of the tale, the heroine needed to "earn" the gift. How? By being "brave enough to hold hands and jump."

There are 139 comments over at the NYT, many of them very critical of the Times:

Why does the Times glorify home-wrecking? Is it a sign of our times that personal responsibility to one's spouse and children takes a back seat to selfish, self-centered love....

The notions of "Vows" has a deliciously ironic depth of meaning here - the ones they made, but the ones they felt less compelled to honor. I doubt very much there's not more than what is related here - What a rationalization as to why it's OK to "befriend" another family then break up two in one shot. "It was just love!" Methinks it's the selfishness that's big and noisy!

They not only broke up their own families. They broke up the big friendship that had interwoven the 2 families. The left-behind spouses not only trusted their own partner, they also believed that, together with that partner, they enjoyed a great friendship with a wonderful couple and their kids. All those memories of social times spent together are now to be understood in a new way.

Forbes has a story about the controversy:

In addition to strong condemnation from numerous bloggers and many of the paper’s own commenters, the article, as a first of sorts for the Times, invited a number of questions. Why were the ex-spouses of the newlyweds not mentioned by name in the story? Did the reporter call them for comment, as basic journalistic practice would dictate? Why did the Times open up the comment board when most Vows stories are off-limits? And above all, what were the couple thinking in telling their story in a space normally reserved for feel-good, soft-focus meet-cute tales?

“We did this because we just wanted one honest account of how this happened for our sakes and for our kids’ sakes,” Riddell told me. “We are really proud of our family and proud of the way we’ve handled this situation over the past year. There was nothing in the story we were ashamed of.”

Riddell says the backlash is “sort of surprising to me. I think people are focusing a lot on the negative, but there was a lot of positive.” But, she notes, “we’ve had a lot of people say to us how brave we are to do this, how commendable it was that we were as honest as we were.” 

The things people will say... to your face.

So did the story’s author, Devan Sipher, seek comment from the exes?... [A] Times spokeswoman says, “We do not comment on the process of editing and reporting including who was and was not contacted for interviews related to a specific story. The Vows/Wedding column adheres to the standards of the Times.” The paper’s Weddings/Celebrations editor, Robert Woletz, did not return a message; nor did the exes, who, like their former spouses, both have high-level jobs in the media industry. (In both cases, the first marriage was also written up in the Times.)

That's all very complex. But I'm happy with the notion that the Times writes up marriage stories because they raise interesting issues. Happy families are all alike. Who wants to read about them?

"You know what 'Survivor' is like? It's like marriage with the guarantee that you will divorce."

Things overheard at Meadehouse. 

Wait. It needs some tweaking. It's like marriage with the guarantee that you will divorce, and one partner will get all the assets.

"What are your thoughts on feminism today?"

Fran Lebowitz is asked:

Well, now they’ve done it, and I believe that women have gotten pretty much as far as they’re going to get. Which is better, but not great. I mean, it’s immensely better. There’s no comparison. It’s against the law to say, “This job is just for boys.” But that doesn’t mean there aren’t all kinds of jobs you can’t have [as a woman]. And there are all kinds of things you won’t get. It’s just much more subtle now. And that’s progress.

But there are still girls who make it bad for girls. Young girls are always showing me their diamond engagement rings. “Look, Fran!” It’s so old-fashioned. I think that I am too old to feel that people who are kids remind me of my parents. Someone my age is supposed to be angered by kids. You’re supposed to say, “These crazy kids—what will they think of next?” You’re not supposed to say, “These kids are so boring. These kids are so regressive.” It’s like the 1950s. The 1950s weren’t just about great suits. That time was really suffocating.

So it seems to me that people, especially women, especially women who have all these choices, are now looking for things that aren’t oppressive exactly but are pretty suffocating. What used to be called middle-class respectability looked like it was going to disappear, but it didn’t. It’s returned. It just returned in a different costume. If you do it in a loft instead of a split-level in the suburbs, it’s still the same. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be allowed to do it; I’m saying it’s suburban. This is why New York today seems suburban to me—all kids and babies in strollers. It’s 1950s domestic life. The sidewalks are the same size, but now you have twins and dogs.

When life or death is a status...

... on Facebook.

ADDED: I received email from a man whose 18-year-old son died in an accident:

Because he graduated from high school in June, most of his friends are also college freshmen, and in September were newly scattered to the four winds, nowhere near their closest friends and not yet having developed close friendships in their new schools.... [They] posted hundreds of messages to his wall in the weeks following his death, and they continue to post there. These comments have brought, and bring, considerable solace to them, and to my wife, our daughter, and me.

And it was through Facebook that we were able to arrange with [his] friends all over North America to offer a tribute to him when they were home for Thanksgiving. We used Facebook to put out a call for ideas, and his friends used it to get together over long distances and decide how to pay tribute....

So now I have a use for Facebook, and I have more respect for its role in life and society than I ever thought I might. It can be a useful thing, and can bring comfort. To my surprise, it can bring people together and sustain them though emotional turbulence. From our family's vantage point at least, the benefits of Facebook outweigh whatever deleterious side-effects it might have.

"How to get a workplace spouse to fill in the gaps in your marriage."

Penelope Trunk talks about why you might want to develop a relationship like this — not for sex! — and gives 5 rules:

1. Identify a relationship with a high chance for success....

2. Talk about a taboo topic.

Once a girl starts talking about sex, then the boy starts talking about sex....

3. Blur the normal boundaries between co-workers....

4. Ask for what you want....

5. Find a good balance between the official relationship and the unofficial relationship....

I smell trouble. Lots of trouble. Whatever happened to friends? Trunk tells us she has a husband who wants sex but is "sick of talking" to her. She wants someone to talk to and asserts that "when workplace spouse relationships do cross the line into the sex department, the relationship goes bad." But you can't neatly control relationships, and they do "go bad" — in many unpredictable ways.

"My husband is my guardian angel."

"He's stuck by me through everything. Most men would have left a long time ago and who could blame them but Myron is a living saint."

What is the symbiotic relationship between a person who is too obese to get out of bed and the person who brings her the food that is keeping her that big?

(To maintain a weight of 700 pounds you need to eat 8400 calories a day. )

"Men tend to behave better when they're married..."

"... both because marriage likely helps improve their behavior, and nicer men are more likely to be married in the first place, a new study reports."

Via Instapundit.

The last couple of days, I've been preoccupied with the Prop 8 case, where the key question is: What is the government's interest in restricting marriage to opposite sex couples? The pro-Prop 8 side focused entirely — and oddly — on the fact that only opposite-sex couples make babies accidentally. If accidental babies are the problem, why express any negativity toward same-sex couples? They'll only get babies if they make a deliberate decision to have them.

But this study suggests another reason for the special treatment of opposite sex couples. Society extracts better behavior from men by encouraging them to pair up with women. Women are the tamers of men. Don't waste women on other women. The social order wants to maximize the use of women for the fixing of men. And if men pair with men, all hell will break loose. Double the chaos of men roaming solo. With synergy, even more than double.

I spent all day Monday watching the oral argument in the 9th Circuit, and much of yesterday, reading, talking, and writing about it. That would have been way more entertaining if the pro-Prop 8 lawyers had contended that there is a legitimate government interest in controlling men by yoking them to women.

Albums.

Here are 200 $5 MP3 albums. 100 regular albums and — look for the additional link at the link — 100 Christmas albums.

I was just thinking about the way I don't really listen to whole albums anymore. Back when we had vinyl LPs, we consumed music in whole-album form, with the tracks in proper order. I think in the last 10 years, I've only really internalized one whole album. (This one.)

And I just realized this morning that the album that had the most effect on the structure of my brain and my life is this one. That opening track and that closing track — in particular and taken together — send a message about what sort of relationships are desirable. You have no idea how much that shaped my thinking about what I wanted and should (or could) ask for in life. The argument against the traditional was phenomenally mind-bending.

"The Stones carry no Woodstockesque, antibusiness baggage."

Why the Rolling Stones are able to make so much money.

Not everyone, of course, is enchanted by Jagger’s business smarts. There are those who see the Stones’ transformation into a brand as an affront to the very spirit of rock ’n’ roll, a betrayal of the lawless, piratical impulse that once made them great. Such romantics are inclined to question whether a song like “Street Fighting Man”(“Hey! Said my name is called disturbance/I’ll shout and scream, I’ll kill the king, I’ll rail at all his servants”) can still be plausibly sung by an elderly knight who does sponsorship and licensing deals with Microsoft and Sprint.

These "romantics" just need to perceive the romanticism of capitalism. Capitalism could say "my name is called disturbance" — creative destruction and all — don't you think?  By the way, Mick Jagger studied at the London School of Economics.

Speaking of romance, Jagger addresses the subject of marriage:

“I don’t really subscribe to a completely normal view of what relationships should be... I have a bit more of a bohemian view. To be honest, I don’t really think much of marriage. I’m not saying it’s not a wonderful thing and people shouldn’t do it, but it’s not for me. And not for quite a few other people too, it would appear... I just think it’s perhaps not quite what it’s cracked up to be. I know it’s an elaborate fantasy.”

Capitalistic?

"Your name is Brian Mitchell, and you're attracted to young girls, and you're just a loser."

"... you're not going down as a servant of God. You're going down as a child rapist. You're going down as the lowest of the low.... I hate to tell you this, Brian, but the Rapture has not happened. You are still in this room. You cannot escape.... She gave you up. She thinks that you are a child rapist. She finds you rather smelly, and disgusting."

The police interrogation of the man who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart. His response:

"She was converted by the spirit of God.... The Lord God delivered her.... I'm just obedient to what God told me to do... I have only done what the Lord God almighty commanded me to do... You're asking me to speak about things which are sacred and holy and which I cannot talk about.... I thought she was 18. And she willingly chose to be sealed... Get thee behind me Satan!"