Shame and an Essay

Lying to the American people and the Congress of the United States is an impeachable offense. Attacking a basically defenseless country that is not a threat to you, has not attacked you, and is trying to avoid a war with you, is a war crime. Violating the Geneva Convention is a war crime. Torturing prisoners is a war crime. War profiteering is a war crime.

The national debt is at an all-time high. Unemployment is rampant. The economy is questionable. The lack of health care is a national scandal. The environment is being systematically destroyed because of corporate greed. More people are living in poverty. More have lost their health care. Every state is experiencing a financial crisis. The entire world holds the present administration and its leader in contempt. The country is more divided than at any time since the Civil War.

In spite of all this the Spokesman-Review has outrageously seen fit to endorse a lying, incompetent, warmongering war criminal to be President of the United States. Shame, I say! Shame!

Contrast this absolutely thoughtless endorsement with the truly fine endorsements of John Kerry by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Seattle Times, and the Boston Globe.

Essay:

These days, what with no fault divorce, the causes of divorce are no longer a legal question. They are, however, still an interesting academic question. Besides, not everywhere has no fault divorces. It is fairly common to read (especially if you read a bit of cultural anthropology now and then) that among the so-and-so peoples, barrenness is grounds for divorce, or adultery is, or the failure to mind your mother-in-law, or neglecting the children, failing to cook dinner, things like that. In more "civilized" lands there are more abstract concepts, general categories like incompatibility, desertion, irreconcilable differences, failure to provide or communicate, mental cruelty, and so on. It's all nonsense, no matter where you are.
The fact is, there are almost as many reasons for divorce as there are divorces. And the real reasons are usually quite specific and mundane although, granted, usually exacerbated over time. Backseat driving and reading over someone's shoulder are too obvious even to mention. Chewing with your mouth open, that's a genuine cause for sure, and probably not uncommon. Talking when your spouse is reading is another, as is interrupting sporting events to describe the latest spring fashions. Naturally you can't sit up there in court and testify that you want a divorce because your spouse talks when you read, or discusses fashion when you want to watch the Dodgers or bowling or something like that. Of course you can't, you'd look pretty stupid (to say nothing of cranky) if you tried something like that. But there are lots of other reasons, probably an infinite variety. Denigrating Tommy Lasorda, for example. Being too predictable, like saying, without fail, every single time you pass an ice cream shop, "Oh, I just love ice cream, can we stop?" Or worse yet, "There goes another pound," every time they use the bathroom.
Still another cause for divorce, although not so commonly recognized as such perhaps, is the "force your spouse to say something he/she doesn't want to" syndrome as, for example, "Darling, please tell them that joke you told last night at the Jones's." The more subtle and even more destructive version of this is, "Isn't this a lovely room (or whatever)," upon entering someone's godawful green and orange living room with the checkered drapes and the meant-for-outdoors carpeting. Mud pack probably ranks up there as a cause for disillusionment and divorce along with hair curlers. It's really the little things that break people up, the big things you can overcome. What's a little barrenness or failure to provide between friends? It's when your love cannot understand, no matter how many not so subtle hints you drop, that you can't bear the sound of him/her eating that apple when your're trying to read that gets you.
Picking your teeth at the table after every meal will do it too. Bubble gum in an adult can be a disaster as can habitually putting your feet on the coffee table. Contrariness is a more important problem and a sure breakerupper. Why is it that some partners to a marriage seem to think it is their obligation to be contrary? If you want to plant it here they want to plant it there. If you say its nice out, they say its not. It doesn't take much time for this to result in divorce, but those who do it just can't seem to stop. They seem to believe that's what marriage is all about, "being free to have differences of opinion."
Even blowing your nose can be hazardous to marital stability, especially if you are overly noisy or idiosyncratic about it. Interestingly, failing to blow your nose can also be problemmatical, depending upon circumstances and sensibilities. All in all marriage is a dangerous affair; living with another is a difficult enterprise complicated by who knows what little insignificant but significant behaviors that can spell doom to even the most stable of personalities. Let's not delude ourselves with all kinds of grandiose generalizations about what causes divorce but remember the real nitty gritty and beware.