Living Single

You don't mind about "religiosity"? I do. As a comparison, the number of people who claim a high importance of religion in their lives, and regular church attendance, is much lower in Northern Europe, while their economies are doing much better than ours.

But for the main point: all of these cultural-factor ruminations would be so much easier to scrutinize (and I believe would be washed away) if we simply got back to an economy that rewarded the middle-class job. Instead, we have 30 years of heaping rewards on the richest, hoping for some trickle-down, and then wondering why families break, communities wane, and social norms shatter.

Bella! Surely I misread this! I'm non-religious and I *know* that I give more money to charitable causes and donate more volunteer time than most of my religious friends! I live in a part of the country where "What church do you go to?" comes before "Are you married?" in the getting-to-know-you conversations and if general politeness to store clerks, other drivers, etc. is any measure, I'm a nicer person too!
For someone who prides herself on being so aware of the hidden biases in our society... shame on you!

"Murray is railing against what some dismissively call "the welfare state" or "European socialism." Why, then, is he such a strong proponent of welfare for married people? More than 1,000 federal laws benefit and protect only those people who are legally married. Many of the windfalls are financial, and include, for example, Social Security benefits and tax advantages (yes, even on income taxes - I know you won't take my word for it, complete with a tabled break-down." EXCELLENT, Just EXCELLENT. Dr. DePaulo.
solo in Arkansas with no regrets

Yoseph Robinson's life was remarkable journey from petty criminal to observant Jew
BY HENRICK KAROLISZYN, MATTHEW LYSIAK AND CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS WRITERS Saturday, August 21, 2010
Yoseph Robinson's remarkable journey from petty criminal to rap impresario to observant Jew began in sunny Jamaica. Along the way, Robinson touched dozens of lives and made believers out of skeptics who said a black man with his past had no business being an Orthodox Jew. "I would look at him and say, 'Yoseph, how can you be black and be Jewish?'" a grieving pal, Joane Tomas, 25, said. "And Yoseph would just look at me with this big smile and say, 'It's not about color, it's about faith.'" Robinson was in the midst of a divorce and custody battle, accusing his California wife of keeping him from visiting or calling their 6-year-old daughter, court records show.
He also accused her of straying from an observant lifestyle, which he called "psychologically damaging to our daughter." The divorce was pending and a judge granted him joint custody less than a month ago. He is also survived by a 14-year-old son in Philadelphia and an 11-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter in Virginia, relatives said."
solo in Arkansas

The man wants to sell books, he wants to make money, all sorts of interesting words are dripping out of his mouth. This is much like that "All young men are lazy and worthless" book released last year.

Murray does make a few points, Caucasians are fracturing into different classes. But he says they've fractured into 2 classes, the haves and the have nots. I say there are 4 classes, the married haves, the married would-like-to-have-but-are-having-a-little-less, white trash who don't want to have and are looking for a permanent hand-out, and another group filled with singles/divorced/separated that simply want to be left alone.

Murray thinks there used to be one big happy group of whites that believed in marriage, hard work and religiousity. I'd like to see him prove that. Murray wants whites to re-assimilate in 2012 to practice hard work, marriage, making babies and going to church. I don't want to assimilate or re-assimilate or run down to the trailer park to demand an overweight abused pregnant teen get married.

I'm not going to do it and neither will anyone else. It looks like Murray is going to sell a lot of books to married people so they can feel good about themselves. I wish him well.

Murray's prescription would make more people sick! Fact is that suburbia, long the bantion of marrieds, has a faster growing poverty rate than urban and rural areas. More than ever, I know married women who have become the main wage earner. If Murray thinks that our society is going back to the '50's he's delutional. The train has left the station and it ain't comin' back. No longer do women have to marry for "respectability" or to have children or for a financial lifeline. I believe that there are a growing number of angry white men who can't accept that the status quo has changed, especially that women are demanding more from men in their relationships. In terms of religiousity, I don't see that many married in church, and I attend a liberal Protestant church with a diverse population. Of the marrieds that I have only one coworker (and his family)who attend church on a regular basis. So much for the myth that "marrieds" are formally worshipping!

What a lot of paternalistic, elitist crap. How is it that anyone listens to this guy?

I've started a blog about being over forty and single and have mentioned and will continue to mention your writing... thebitterbabe.wordpress.com

I thought this was about the academic pursuit of psychological theory, instead its a lesson on politics. News flash, some of what he said is true, and some of what you say is true, but this article doesn't belong in this publication, it belongs on Huff post or some other liberal publication.

In reading this book last night, I learned, Poverty, Battered Women, and Work in U.S. Public Policy (Interpersonal Violence) – 2011by Lisa D. Brush (Author), is one smart “cookie”. Brush smartly challenges the everyday beliefs about women's relationship to work, battering, personal responsibility, and self-empowerment that are so embedded in public policy and individual consciousness that they appear natural and normal rather than punitive, dangerous, and wrong. I have just finished reading Ms. Brush wonderful book. Indeed smart, she is, and very wise. Need I say more, you can read this insightful book yourself via the local library for free. This is where I got my hardcopy from, and returned it this rainy morning in Arkansas.
The author writes: (pg. 41) “At the high end of the labor market, workers now expect opportunities to continuous skill building, participation in workplace decision making, and creative work in return for uncertainty, insecurity, and ever-expanding demands on their time from “greedy workplaces. Low end serve sector workers support high-end workers through personal and business services, and perform custodial labor on a crumbling public infrastructure.” (pg. 58) “The connections among poverty, battering, work, and policy resound with gender politics to which exchange theorists tend to turn a deaf ear.” PRINCIPLED CONCLUSION (pg. 125) “The combination of discrimination and lack of opportunity in the worlds of work and politics, on the one hand, and violence, intimidation, isolation, and control in relationships, on the other hand, undermines women’s capacities for decision making and envisioning and fulfilling their self-determined life projects. Those autonomous life projects are among the basic human rights that people institute democratic governments in order to secure. Making change makes sense, and developing policies and supporting practices that increase women’s safety and solvency is good politics.”

And, Aspiring Nuns Report for God's Duty -- November 23, 2010
Read more: http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Aspiring-Nuns-Report-for-Gods-Duty-Video#... – One thing for sure these women will all be living tiny and very, very simple lives. I saw this show and had mixed-feelings, I am not catholic. Also In case you missed it, there was a Harvard grad among this group. Nope. No paid careers for these gals, no children and husbands to worry about and NO shopping, and living in oversized homes, either.
Murray is nuts.
single (by choice & childfree) in Arkansas

Folks remember the Minnesota Farmer Loren Krueger Leaves $3 Million to Hometown of ... Dec 16, 2010 – Minnesota Farmer Leaves $3 Million to Hometown ... Loren Krueger of LeRoy, a small Minnesota town on the Iowa border, died last ….. and, now, January, 2012 --'Poor' Woman Leaves Close to $2 Million to Salvation Army was in the news -- She was taught by her mother to never waste a thing. She never purchased a dryer, hanging her laundry on a clothesline in the backyard. She painted her home when it needed a touch-up and mowed her lawn until she reached her early 90s. She refused to go to restaurants, the movies or pay for cable TV. It could be said she took frugality to a whole new level. Needless to say, it was a shock when a check for $1,731,533.91 from the estate of Elinor Sauerwein was presented to a California branch of the Salvation Army last Christmas Eve. "It was a surprise and a blessing," Capt. Michael Paugh of the Salvation Army in Modesto told ABC News.

My take from all of this is that it’s great to have others who are helping human beings and especially this country. There is no greed in these real life stories. Rock on, Dr. DePaulo!!! Readers, let’s not forget these few others from my files:
98-Year-Old Woman Leaves Secret Millions to Home Town
By Nate Jones | June 11, 2010 |-Why not settle in for a nice comfy feel-good story, the tale of 98-year-old Verna Oller, who bequeathed her secret $4.5 million investing fortune to her home town of Long Beach, Washington. The money will be used to fund scholarships and build the town’s first indoor pool. Remember, don’t forget this real live story, American Heart: Secretive Millionaire Leaves her Fortune to Her Washington Hometown. Also , on January 19, 2012, I learned, this was NOT a greedy marriage:
FRANKLIN, Ind. − Franklin College is in receipt of a $4.2 million bequest following settlement of the Effie Joan Behrens estate. Effie, a longtime resident of Indianapolis and a Fort Wayne native, died Dec. 11, 2010. She had been a Franklin College trustee since 1991, actively engaged in the campus community and dedicated to enriching religious life resources, supporting campus beautification and funding student scholarships. In accordance with Effie’s wishes, 75 percent of her bequest was allocated to the college endowment for student scholarships and church relations. The Franklin College Board of Trustees followed institutional policy and directed the remaining 25 percent of unrestricted funds to the college’s most urgent need, The Future Unfolds capital campaign. The board’s additional actions included naming the new college softball facility Behrens Field and adding landscaping to the new Grizzly Park athletics complex; both were campaign goals. Effie had played softball in her youth and for most of her life was an avid swimmer. She also loved nature and gardening, especially raising orchids. The naming of the softball field and the completion of landscaping ensure that some of the simple pleasures so meaningful to Effie during her lifetime will continue to be enjoyed by future generations of Grizzlies.
In 1842, the college began admitting women, becoming the first coeducational institution in Indiana and the seventh in the nation. Franklin College maintains a voluntary association with the American Baptist Churches USA. For more information, visit www.franklincollege.edu.

so why should it surprise us that he didn't start now?

Pioneer Frank Reed was great humanitarian and a leader
(01/25/12 21:58:16)
Frank Reed's recent passing brings to mind a story from yesteryear. In the late 1950s when my mother was struggling to get on her feet in Anchorage after a divorce from my father, Frank Reed let her and I to stay at his Turnagain Arms Apartments rent-free. When she finally landed a job and wanted to pay back several months rent, he refused to take any money.
In the 1980s when my wife and I were in danger of losing a piece of property because the developer refused to extend our earnest money agreement, Frank Reed, then a senior vice president at the Alaska Bank of Commerce, helped us secure an emergency loan that allowed us to keep the property and eventually build a home there.
Frank Reed was a pioneer Alaskan extraordinaire, humanitarian and valued community leader. I feel honored and privileged to have known him and his wonderful wife Maxine. In a book about the history of Alaska, Frank Reed would deserve a chapter unto himself.
-- Frank E. Baker Eagle River

Frank Reed Passes Away At 99 By Ellen Lockyer, KSKA - Anchorage | January 23, 2012 - 5:15 pm
One of Anchorage’s best-known residents has passed away. Frank Reed, who arrived in Alaska’s tent city on Ship Creek in 1915 as a toddler, died at Providence Hospital yesterday at age 99. Reed, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday this coming December, was raised in the hotel business. His family ran the original Anchorage Hotel until the mid 1930s, and Reed often told a story about a famous guest, artist Sydney Laurence, who paid his hotel bill with a oil painting of Mt. McKinley. Speaking on KSKA’s Hometown Alaska last December, Reed remembers the reaction of Alaskans the day Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941.
Over the course of his life, Reed worked as an electrical contractor, a developer, a bank vice president and head of the Small Business Administration in Anchorage.
Reed was married for 71 years to his wife, Maxine, who preceded him in death. He is survived by his daughter Pauline Reed, and by numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren. Reed’s family plans to hold a celebration of his life on December 22 of this year, the day on which Reed would have turned 100.

Heathens? Not sure I care to be lumped into that category. And I think their preference is -Christianity- rather than religiosity; they sure don't want more Muslims around.

Arguing with this type of person only gives them the opportunity to spout more of their nonsense, a platform to spread intolerance.

Really, the problem in our country is that the people who are in the "right" aren't vocal enough in telling others how they should live their lives? I thought that was the entire purpose of the republican party.

is that they believe that the Dick Van Dyke show was real.

Murray is recommending these very traditional elites mingle with others so as to spread their own particular values. But I wonder if in fact the opposite might happen, perhaps theses traditional elites would find their values changing.

Studies of college students show that the political atmosphere of a college will alter a student's political views, even if they're at the opposite side of the political spectrum from their school. Something very similar could happen here.

The Glock Family Feud
By Paul M. Barrett, Zoe  Schneeweiss and Caroline Winter
January 25, 2012 11:10 PM EST
The new Mrs. Glock, now managing director of the Glock Horse Performance Center, an equestrian complex in southern Austria, also declined to comment, according to Autischer.
A legal shootout has erupted within Austria’s wealthy Glock clan, makers of the well-known semiautomatic pistol of the same name. Sold to governments and civilians throughout the world—and used by two-thirds of U.S. police departments—the Glock handgun made its inventor, Gaston Glock, one of his country’s leading industrialists and a very rich man. Now Glock’s marriage to a woman 51 years his junior has ignited litigation and raised questions about the manufacturer’s future. In December, Helga Glock, Gaston’s wife of 49 years until they divorced earlier in 2011, filed a civil lawsuit in an Austrian court seeking to regain a significant stake in the Glock corporate empire. She claims her stake was improperly shifted from her by advisers to her 82-year-old ex-husband.

http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2012/01/david-brooks-deals-with-prof...

David Brooks identifies and explains the issue fair enough, then totally blows the proper response? Why not recognize we reward bad behavior and stop doing so?