2013 a tipping point against the family

Billionare and NY mayor Michael Bloomberg's daughter just gave birth to a son, with an unmarried Argentine equestrian boyfriend. New grandpa Bloomberg divorced his wife a couple of years ago, and is living with a girlfriend without marriage.

Eliot Spitzer is getting a divorce and has a new girlfriend, since he lost his last election. More and more court decisions are detrimental to normal marriage, while recognizing same-sex marriage and polygamy. We may be reaching a tipping point towards the destruction of marriage and the family.

I eventually read the New Yorker story on the Egyptian-American mom who lost her kid to CPS and foster care and who was framed for child abduction. It confirmed my suspicions, with all of the arguments against her being vague contradictory psychobabble. Sometimes you can just read the accusations, and know that there is no valid case. The mom herself has commented on my blog.

Yesterday's newspaper advice column recommends a fake wedding with a phony minister:

Dear Annie: I am an 84-year-old woman in love with a 92-year-old man. Since I'm rather old-fashioned, I do not believe in living with him unless we are married. However, marrying him could change our financial status. Is there any service that could be performed so that we may live together legally and not impact our children's legacy? -- In Love

Dear In Love: Please discuss this with a lawyer who specializes in marital law. There are clergy who will perform religious marriage ceremonies that may not be legally binding, depending on the state you live in, ...

Only someone who is anti-marriage would advocate a sham wedding in order to defraud Social Security.

The next letter is even weirder:

Dear Annie: You've printed a few letters about married couples who are not enjoying a good sex life. I think there is more advice you should give on this subject.

First of all, married couples should not sleep in the same bed. ...

As far as the physical problems, there are many possible reasons for a low libido. But for men, it's food preservatives, which often contain saltpeter. Men who want to stay virile must avoid packaged foods.

Besides over-familiarity and physical problems, there is the issue of what to do in bed. Couples who explore the Persecutor-Victim-Rescuer story are usually able to develop some very exciting scripts.

There is some bad advice. I have heard that rape fantasies work well for some couples also.

Update: Right after posting this, my local newspaper dropped the stupid "Annie" advice column:

Starting today, you’ll notice some changes on our regular feature pages. We’ve tweaked the offerings on our comics page, and we’ve con­solidated our puzzles page with our entertainment page.

In the comics package, you’ll notice the addition of “Mother Goose & Grimm,” “Six Chix,” “Tun­dra,” “Luann,” “Little Dog Lost,” “Mister Boffo,” “Wumo” and “Take it from the Tinkersons.”

Those strips will replace “The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee,” “Lio,” “Freshly Squeezed,” “Doonesbury,” “Rhymes with Orange,” “F-Minus,” “The Duplex,” “Mutts” and “Pea­nuts.”

The switch is part of a Digital First Media initiative to create some common pages that can be shared by small groups of the company’s papers. In turn, that allows us to focus our efforts on what we do best, which is giving you up-to-date local news and features. The Digital First initiative is not currently affecting our Sunday comics offerings.

On “Your Daily Break,” our new consolidated puzzles and entertainment page, you’ll find a new advice column from Carolyn Hax of the Washington Post, the games Sudoku, 7 Little Words and Celebrity Cipher, a daily horoscope, a daily TV listings grid, plus the NEA Crossword.

Okay, maybe it was the result of some larger changes, and not from my influence. Now they have some other dopey advice columnist instead.