I have been thinking. For me that can be dangerous. Long term marital relationships are hard for lots of folks.
Ben Franklin is supposed to have said, “All marriages are doomed from the start because all grooms expect the bride to stay exactly as she is on her wedding day, and all brides expect the groom to change.” Maybe itis that simple. Maybe couples have problems because they do not have a realistic attitude about marriage.
I have been looking through a number of polls on marriage. The results are inconsistent to say the least. But they do show that those who believe one problem is a lack of commitment, may be accurate.
It comes as no surprise that nearly all who are newly married report they plan to be married for life. But that is not what happens. Of those respondents who first married 15-25 years before a survey conducted by Fatherhood.org , 44% had divorced, two % were separated, and another 21% who were still in intact first marriages reported they were less than “very happy.”
This leaves only 33% of the marriages that can be considered successful, in the sense of being both stable and of high quality. Experienced respondents also indicated marriage had not been all that great for them.
In contrast to widespread aspirations to marry among unmarried young persons, a large percentage of unmarried, but once married middle-aged and elderly respondents, said they did not want to remarry. This includes 82% of those age 60 and older, and 49 % of those age 35 through 59.
A Zogbee poll is another which discloses people say one thing but act differently. Eighty-eight percent of participants reported being either happy or reasonably content in their marriages. Over half who said they were happy used words like "joyful" and "loving" to portray their marriages. What's more, 71% of couples said they've stayed married because of deep love, while 73 % cited companionship.
When it came to marital satisfaction, men reported being happier than women with 70% saying they never think about leaving their wife. But, over half of the women admitted to thinking about leaving their husbands.
So did any of these couples cheat? Absolutely,: 19 percent of men said they'd had sex outside the marriage -- the majority with two or more people other than their wife. And 11 percent of women admitted to cheating, usually with only one person. (Four percent of women did not answer the question.)
Whatever the reason, other polls also show broad inconsistencies as in this poll taken by Women’s Day magazine and AOL. It shows:
49% of wives have suspected or have caught their husband having an affair.
39% of wives report they flirt with other men constantly.
56% of married women either would not, or are not sure if they would, marry their husbands if they had to do it all over again.
76% of wives fantasize about a man other than their husband.
76% of married women keep secrets from their husbands.
33% of all wives sleep in the nude.
32% sleep on the opposite end of the bed from their husband.
The answer to the million dollar question: How often are couples having sex? Thirty-one percent of responders said less than once a month. Twenty-seven percent said "A few times a week." When asked why they didn't have marital sex more often, men overwhelmingly said their spouse wasn't interested. On the flip side, women cited a loss of sexual interest in their bedmate, anger with them -- or both. More women than men reported they wanted more sex in their lives. I wonder if the reason 31 percent say they did have marital sex less than once a week and the 32% of wifes who sleep on the opposite end of the bed from their husband have any connection?

I really don’t know what all this means except that marriage is a very complicated emotional affair.

For many years I just trusted a power greater than myself to care for me and the world. I mean, I trudged my road of happy destiny doing what I could to save the world, but I am fully aware that I am powerless to change very much except me. Then all at once the world was been slammed by a perfect economic storm. While some saw it coming and tried to tell the rest of us that the sky was about to fall, most of us, even the thinkers, believed there were higher priority things to worry about. I am sure there are authors already compiling data which they will turn into hundreds of books, thousands of pages long, that will attempt to explain it.

We have also just installed the first non white person ever to sit in the oval office. That is historic and unheard of only 40 or so years ago. He is very bright and he has some very bright people around him. Here is a very short summary of what he is facing.
1) A world wide economic collapse and crisis.
2) A world, that when times are good, does not have enough energy to meet its own needs.
3) Our nation fighting two unconventional wars, thousands of miles away.
4) The largest national debt ever run up by the president he replaced.
5) Unlike debts in the past, this debt is owed to foreign banks and other enties controlled by foreign governments. Historically US citizens and financial institutions shouldered the debt.

While we were not paying much attention, there was ar much larger war underway between Good and Evil. Evil caused this financial and economic crisis.

Good teaches us to love and serve and to be patient and wait for delayed gratification in a kind of heaven somewhere. Evil teaches that human kind can have instant gratification and have an instant heaven on earth. All one has to do, says Evil, is to acquire stuff which is more and better stuff than our neighbor. To many, instant gratification has become an end which justifies any means. In fact I believe that human compulsion for instant gratification is leading us to our doom.

Government officials are looking for solutions to our world wide economic and financial crisis through intelligence, logic, and more spending by governments already stripped of real wealth.

Could this be an appropriate time to start looking for solutions based on a change in the world’s spirituality? Can we solve this and future crisis by simply restraining ourselves from putting our trust in instant gratification and start putting our future happiness in what results from our loving and helping of others.

Unfortunately today, that is the last option on the mind of anyone. Maybe as a species we will all suddenly understand how grave this crisis is, and where it will lead us if unsolved. Maybe, that will cause us to truly want to change. But I doubt it.

Until humanity commits to a huge change, human kind may just be CTD -- Circling The Drain.

The thing to do this week for computer users is to write down 25 things about themselves and send them to 25 friends, hoping you will get 25 back in return.

1) When I was born, people thought times were good. The unemployment rate was 17%.
2) I graduated from high school without ever hearing a “rock and roll” record. Maybe one of the last classes to graduate without hearing one.
3) When I was small, I spent a lot of time with my grand parents’ farm in Perry County. There was no electricity there until I was about 10 years old.
4) I was the first music programmer in a major market to program a record by Anne Margaret. That earned me a lot of lunches, dinners and booze with her, courtesy of RCA, her record label.
5) I was also the first music programmer to program a Gary US Bonds record. The name of it was a Quarter to Three. Also, the first to program Michael, by the Highwaymen, and The Way You Look Tonight, by the Lettermen.
6) When his PR people wanted Col. Harlan Sanders to be on a show I was producing in Cleveland in 1962, I wired him for sound and sent him out onto the street with a tin cup, asking passerby for money. His story was that KYC had gone bust; he was stranded in Cleveland and was trying to raise money to get back to Kentucky. He thought it was a lot of fun.
7) I have only cried during two funerals. One was when I was conducting part of the service for a good friend, Mari-jo Stevenson. As her husband Steve, also a very good friend passed her casket on his way up to take communion; he reached underneath and patted the bottom of her casket, just about where her fanny was located. That was one of the most loving gestures I ever saw.
8) The other time was at my brother’s funeral. He was buried beside by grand dad, Quincy, and my grand mother Edith, in a small cemetery in Perry County. I was trying to read a poem he wanted read at his grave side, and was so overwhelmed with tears that I had trouble finishing it. I think it was because those three people have as much of a parenting connection with me as did my parents. Maybe more.
9) In about 1961, I went to lunch with a black singer, maybe Jackie Wilson, but I am not sure who it was. His manager went along to pick up the check. We walked into to one of the better restaurants in downtown Cleveland, were seated promptly, but no waiter or waitress came to take our order. After we had spent 45 minutes or so chatting, it occurred to me that we were not getting service because they were black. We discussed that possibility and at about 1:00 we decided that since none of us had anything pressing to do that afternoon, we would see what would happen if we just continued to sit there. By about 2:30 we were the only customers left in the room, and they took our order and served us. There was no apology or anything for making us wait that long. I don’t think the manager left very much in the way of a tip. I should have known not to take them there. In those days, a black could not get a room in any downtown upscale hotel in Cleveland.
10) I have seen every president, except Barak Obama, in person since Jack Kennedy.
11) I answered media queries in Governor James Rhodes office the day the students were shot at Kent State, in May of 1970.
12) I have been in stage in hundreds of productions and probably have done thousands of performances in public of some kind.
13) I bought my first foreign car, new, for $1,400 dollars in 1959. It was a Fiat 600
14) While I had been a reporter in Erie Pa in about 1960, I did not really start to be interested in politics until I moved to Lima, Ohio in 1963. I spent a few years there and thought of myself as being a liberal democrat. However, that was only because I was in the middle of a VERY conservative Republican area. When I moved to Columbus in about 1966, I discovered I was really pretty conservative. I remain conservative on fiscal matters relating to government, but liberal on human and civil rights issues.
15) I soloed an airplane when I was 18, and have remained interested in aviation ever since. My first solo flight was in a 1941 Taylor craft. It was made mostly of wood and cloth, and the odor of gasoline was so strong in the cockpit that I never even considered lighting a cigarette while flying it.
16) I am skilled at horsemanship, because of my Dads love of the animals. It seems as if I have always known how to ride a horse, and passed along some of his love and knowledge to my kids.
17) I didn’t know it for a long time, but I love an adrenalin rush. I learned to ski when I was 30, and liked it so much I tried to get jobs in Colorado, so I could ski nearly year round. The only thing for me that compares to skiing is driving a race car at speed. In both cases, and is also somewhat the case with flying an airplane, if one makes a mistake one gets instant negative feedback. With all three the feedback can come in the form of pain.
18) The last alcoholic drink I had before typing this was January 16, 1986. I never thought I could be happy with out alcohol, however, after 23 years, I am happier now than I ever thought I could be. The steps of AA work. The promises come true.
19) The first time I got paid to be on the radio, was in 1952. I was one of a barbershop quartet which was paid to be on a talent show in Zanesville. I was also paid to sing while I was still in elementary school. I was a boy soprano, singing in the choir at Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Columbus. We each had a contract so we would not leave and sing in the much better known Columbus Boy choir. I think they pay was enough to cover the cost of riding the street car or electric bus to and from rehersals.
20) At ten years of age I would take a street car or bus from Clintonville to downtown Columbus by myself for rehearsals. Often I would ride public transportation home after the rehearsal and it would be dark. Not something I’d let a kid do today.
21) My family sold nearly everything at auction in 1942 so we could move to Vero Beach, Florida where my Dad was stationed in the US Coast Guard. My mother, brother and I drove there, with mother driving at 35 miles per hour (The Victory Speed limit) in a 1938 Chevy two door deluxe. I did not know it at the time, but I’ll bet enlisting at 43 years of age, as Dad did, cost him a bundle of money. I know the family was dead broke when we returned from Florida after being discharged.
22) I was not a good student in school. I had an undiagnosed learning disability, but had a very high IQ. I graduated near the bottom of my High School Class, but today, all my classmates think I was near the top. Interesting how 50 plus years can change things. I did better in college but ended up in the middle of the class.
23) I hurt a lot of people over the years. I have tried to repair the damage I did.
24) If I had life to do all over again, I don’t think I’d change very much, except I would quit drinking and smoking at a much younger age than I did. As Mickey Mantle said, “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d of taken better care of myself.”
25) My philosophy comes from places different than most people. I believe in a “Force” and a “Dark Side” very similar to that shown in the Star Wars movies. My outlook on the end of life is the same as Captain Hook in the Peter Pan story. “Death is life’s last great adventure.” I got the inspiration for my current life from something sewn on the back of a baseball cap advertising Planet Hollywood. “Love All -- Serve All.

Which is more in need of attention?

• The current economy of your country.
• The longterm protection of environment/resources.

Why can we not have both? They are not mutually exclusive. Our improved economy could be generated by new developments in clean fuel, in sewerage treatment resulting in cleaner water, and similar programs which would also result in a long term improvement in our environment. The US could become the worlds supplier of clean and green technology. I would hope a partner could see the situation that way too.

Humans have been reading from the Book of Proverbs for more than 2000 years. We all know that a King named Solomon was very wise. Few of us have studied the wisdom attributed to him found in the biblical Book of Proverbs. In light of recent reports of wrongdoing by business and governmental leaders, perhaps the book should be required reading in management classes. Without knowledge of the wisdom it contains, we may end up as do the foolish, simple, and evil people cited in the first chapter.

In that chapter, proverbs points out that a fear of God is the beginning of acquiring wisdom, but there are foolish people on earth who despise that wisdom and instruction.

The book warns us that sinners will lead the simple and foolish, and urges the foolish to refrain from following them... It predicts that all who take advantage of the innocent can end up in hell; those who act in evil ways will eventually turn on themselves, and as all who are immersed in greed, will consume themselves.

Meanwhile, says the book, wisdom is calling out, trying to get the attention of those who are evil or foolish and simple, but, she is not being heard The sinners and the foolish people are ignoring wisdom and want none of it.

Wisdom continues this chapter by telling the sinners and the foolish, simple, people:

I will laugh at your disaster. I will mock you when calamity overtakes you as a storm; when your disaster comes on like a whirlwind; when distress and anguish come on you. Then will you call on me, but I will not answer. Even when you seek me diligently, those who are evil or foolish will not find me;

And, concluding the chapter, issues a warning to those who are evil, foolish and simple;

Do you think people who are in the armed forces deserve special treatment?

• Yes.
• No.

And if we gave everyone special treatment, then we would not need as many armed forces.

I have written a paragraph and submitted it to Senator Obama for his use in his upcoming half hour commercial. I think if he uses this, it would do much to heal the wounds that have been opened by the campaign mud slinging this election cycle. It would also help convince voters he really is serious about making changes. Here is what I sent to him.

It is true that I told Joe the Plumber "I think that when you spread the wealth around, it¢s good for everybody.
To show that I am a man of my word, and not just an empty suit who knows how to say the correct things to get elected. As you know, I have collected more money by fundraising than any candidate for any office in history. I know I must be fair to those behind me, so today I wrote checks to John McCain and the other candidates so that we all have an equal amount of money available to spend in these final days of campaigning.

I hope he will use it tonight.

How long can a republic last when it forces businesses and individuals who have acted responsibly, to clean up a financial mess left by the minority who were irresponsibly driven by instant gratification and greed? Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Is the bail-out going to have any effect on greedy business people? Is this bail-out going to have any effect on those citizens who were earning $50,000 a year but were spending money as if they were making $150,000? How long can a republic last when the major candidates for the top administrative position in the republic, neglect to tell the voters the truth? How can either of those guys sleep at night? Are we just stating to recycle and starting to do it all over again?

Do you think it's okay for a female to get pregnant and then dump "the biological father", intentionally using him to have a child?

• Yes
• No

We really can't tell if the biological father entered into the relationship knowing he would just be a sperm donor. If he did know before hand, and agreed to it, then I have no problem with it. I know two men who entered into just such a relationships with two different gay females. One of the guys was gay too, but wanted to father a child. Today, he and the gay female share custody but have never lived together. Both seem happy with the arrangement.

Can overweight people still be sexy?

• Always
• Yes
• No

If I could define 'overweight' I could maybe answer it.