Sanford case shines a spotlight on the central paradox of marriage.

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford not only played fast and loose with the institution of marriage, but with email. However, help keeping affairs secret has arrived for not only politicians, but all of us. AshleyMadison.com just released apps for mobile phones and the Blackberry. Jeremy Caplan reports for Time that because they’re “loaded up from phones’ browsers, they leave no electronic trail.”

For those unfamiliar with it, AshleyMadison is a matchmaking service for married individuals. That’s right: It facilitates affairs. To summarize the statement of a woman Caplan quotes who consults in the online dating field, AshleyMadison is infidelity “rebranded” and made “monetizable.” Though Ashley Madison has signed up over one million users since going online in 2001, she seems concerned that it harms the online dating business for singles. Full Story »

Well, I didn’t expect my return to Scroguedom after six months would be in the form of a personal screed, and on domestic topics no less (as in “household”). However, as the feminist mantra of the 1970s claimed, “the personal is political,” a statement as salient today as it was then.

I’d like to be writing about clean energy or debating health care policy. I wish I could add something astute to the discussion about the future of democracy in Iran. But to do so would mean investing the time to follow these issues closely enough to have something worthwhile to add. And then there’s the time needed to actually write something. I’ve already got four or five unfinished posts languishing on my laptop.

Yet, in the words of my 14-year-old son this morning, who is angry at my asking him to pitch in around the house prior to the arrival of weekend guests, and who can’t understand why I won’t just drop everything to pick him up from the lake with his friends later today, I don’t have a “real job” — so why can’t I be like a good stay-at-home mom and craft my life exclusively around his? Full Story »

Last week, actor Tom Hanks called Mormons who supported California’s Proposition 8 “un-American.” Today Hanks apologized.

He shouldn’t have, because he’s right.

Anyone who would support curtailing the civil rights of a minority group is un-American. Codifying discrimination in a state constitution or in the U.S. Constitution is un-American. And supporting people who aim to curtail civil rights and codify discrimination, as the LDS Church did with regard to Prop-8, is un-American.

And I’ll say this to anyone who supported Prop-8 – you acted un-American too.

Well, here’s a fine howdy-do: Rick Warren, pastor of the mother of all mega-churches, has been tapped to channel Jesus conduct a seance deliver the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration. Because Warren is, you know, a “moderate.”

…in 2004 Warren declared that marriage, reproductive choice, and stem cell research were “non-negotiable” issues for Christian voters and has admitted that the main difference between himself and James Dobson is a matter of tone.  He criticized Obama’s answers at the Faith Forum he hosted before the election and vowed to continue to pressure him to change his views on the issue of reproductive choice.  He came out strongly in support of Prop 8, saying “there is no need to change the universal, historical definition of marriage to appease 2 percent of our population … Full Story »

… I have no doubt she would be getting roundly condemned by the Republicans, and especially conservative evangelicals, about her “poor choices” — and her daughter’s. Since when did the “values voters” crowd decide to rally behind not just a working mom, but one with so many competing family concerns? They would be vilifying her if she were Obama’s VP pick, accusing her of neglecting her large family, her special-needs child, and her teenage daughter who would clearly prompt the question, ‘if she can’t keep things in order at home, how can she run the country?’ Full Story »

Jesus’ General is rolling this morning.

His shot at David Vitter is pretty funny, too. Full Story »

Last night, I had a small disagreement with my wife.  See, I want to take this potential client and his spouse out for dinner, and I’d like to have her along because she could charm a buzzard off a bucket of chitlins and I couldn’t sell stain remover to Sweeney Todd.  Understandably, I suppose, she’s tired of being the only person on our side of the table with a personality and thinks she can find something more amusing to do.  In desperation, I persisted until, batting her Bambi-with-a-switchblade eyes, she dropped this bombshell:”Why don’t you get Lana to go with you?”

Now, to understand the implications of this, you have to know a bit about me and a bit about Lana.  I’ll start with me. Full Story »

Welcome to part three of S&R’s first annual year-end round-up. I’ll begin by apologizing for my colleagues, who have wasted a lot of their time (and yours) yammering about “important” issues. Of course, I admire their intellectual gravity, but let’s be honest – that sort of seriousness is really misplaced when the intended audience is the American public. As we have observed before, the US is not exactly a nation of thinkers.

So today 2007 in Review will be addressing the public interest. For those who have forgotten, the public interest is what the public is interested in. Full Story »

The foundation for Alex Rodriguez’s new contract was poured two weeks ago — 10 years at $275 million. As if that weren’t already enough to start his own nation (the Republic of Rodriguez? A-Rodriana?), on Sunday the infrastructure for his five $6 million bonuses was erected.

While the nature of the incentives wasn’t divulged, it’s believed they’d kick in when he ties each of the five players ahead of him on the all-time home run list — Willie Mays, Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds –- and passes the last.

A few weeks ago, Sports Illustrated’s Lee Jenkins wrote: “Rodriguez tried to sum up the tenor of negotiations, which sound more like ongoing couples therapy: ‘During these healthy discussions, both sides were able to share honest feelings and hopes with one another.’”

A-Rod, despite his macho name, is baseball’s Sensitive Boy. But the words in the statement Jenkins quoted might have been put in his mouth by who the New York Post describes as his “long-suffering wife,” Cynthia. Full Story »

I’m in the doghouse today. I decided to lose ten pounds about three days ago, cut out eating between meals, and am now ten pounds lighter. Asking around, I find I’m not alone. Many men can do this. Most of them are divorced. Here’s a conversation from yesterday.

Wife: Wow. Those pants look really good on you!

Me: They do? They’re the same jeans I wore yesterday.

Puzzled wife: They are? They didn’t look this good yester … Full Story »

The gig is up for Warren Jeffs.

ST. GEORGE, Utah (Reuters) – U.S. polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed “prophet” of a sect of breakaway Mormons, was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 years to life in prison for having forced a 14-year-old girl to marry her first cousin.The leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS, received five years to life for each of two felony convictions on charges he was an accomplice to rape. The sentences will be served consecutively and a state board of pardons will ultimately determine how much time he spends in prison. (Story.)

The FLDS features all kinds of oddness, including “blood atonement” (”the extrajudicial killings of certain sinners”), “child brides, rabid racism, multiple wives, and a secretive, religious dictator” (that’d be our boy Warren, by the way). Full Story »

In my most recent post, one commenter repeatedly insisted that I offer a solution or an alternative for the problems I was pointing to. As I noted there, I never suggested that there was a problem, and even if there were, it’s hardly my job to be proposing a lot of solutions that aren’t going to be acted on. If you believe there’s the slightest plausibility of change wafting in the wind, you haven’t taken a good look at the likely presidential contenders in your two major parties.

However, for the sake of argument, let’s pretend that I think America’s current condition constitutes a “problem” and that I’m tasked with offering a solution. I would begin with one critical observation about your system of governance: The problem with democracy in America is that too many people are allowed to participate. Full Story »

And away we go! Sen. David Vitter, a conservative Louisiana Republican, has become the first major pol linked to “DC Madame” Deborah Jane Palfrey.

[UPDATE: Won't you please help save Sen. Vitter's winky?]

A bit of context is in order.

• Vitter is a no-compromises god-n-country anti-hanky-panky conservative who in 1998 said that Louisiana Rep. Bob Livingston’s resignation over marital infidelity “makes a very powerful argument that [President Bill] Clinton should resign as well.” [Atlanta Journal Constitution, 12/20/98. Pg. 04D] Full Story »

It’s come to me over a three-decade period. I’ve been a child of divorce, an employee, a taxpayer, a voter, a student, a homeowner, a boyfriend, a customer, a punching bag, and somewhere in between, a human being; but I’ve found that, ultimately, the one label I can truly attach to myself is this:

I am a peanut.

One way or another, by whatever means necessary, I am little more than a nut to be cracked and ground into a sticky paste that will be combined with jelly, and only jelly, between two slices of bread, to fulfill my so-called biological purpose.

Say the voices in the paper, on the Internet and the public address system Non-Plasma CRT Happy-Box: Full Story »

Mitt Romney said a couple curious things Saturday. Fortunately for him, he did so at Regent “University,” which isn’t a place you’re likely to encounter a lot of critical thinking. The most entertaining assertion was this bit:

“It seems that Europe leads Americans in this way of thinking,” Romney told the crowd of more than 5,000. “In France , for instance, I’m told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up. How shallow and how different from the Europe of the past.” (Story.)

Mmmmkay. I’ve turned the Internets inside out and can’t find a scrap of evidence to support this claim. Full Story »