Today I thought I would throw out a question for you to consider: Since people who are married appear to be happier and healthier than people who are single, do governments have a responsibility to actively promote marriage just as they might promote other healthy lifestyle choices? And if they do, how should they go about doing that?
Month: February 2012
New research tells a story that my younger self would have appreciated because it illustrates how difficult it is for women to be attached to the labor force when their families are forced to move because employment is hard to find.
Western organizations have big, big plans for the penises of millions of African men. They are to be clipped, and in short order. In Tanzania alone there is a plan to circumcise 2.8 million men in the next five years. What those men decide to do with their newly trimmed penises, after the mobile circumcision unit is just a painful memory, will ultimately determine whether or not these campaigns are effective at reducing HIV/AIDs rates in Africa.
Three roses. Everyone else is giving roses by the dozen and I end up with a man whose decides partway through our (long) relationship that he giving three roses on Valentine’s Day is going to be his “thing”. Its quirky and fun he tells me but I know darn well that he has gone to the florist and asked “How much for a dozen roses?” … “How much for six roses?”…. “Um, okay then give me three.”
I have always thought that the fable that best describes the modern world is that of the Emperor’s New Clothes. You know the one in which the ruler struts around naked while his subjects tell him how wonderful his new robes are rather than risking to appear to be stupid. Of course at the end of the story we think they are stupid anyhow, not because they couldn’t see the supposedly invisible clothes, but because they put all their faith in an authority that told them that the ruler was wearing magical clothes when even a child could see that he was just a naked old man.
I had a heated debate on Facebook this week over the issue raised in this opinion piece in The New York Times that argues that anti-discrimination laws don’t go far enough to protect women who lose their jobs because they are pregnant.
