Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"Marriage is under threat, all right. The threat, however, comes not from gay couples who want to get married but from straight couples who either do not get married or do not stay married. A third of American children are born to unmarried parents. The divorce rate has doubled since 1960, and the marriage rate fell 40 percent from 1970 to 2000. Cohabitation rose 72 percent in the 1990s. Twenty-eight percent of young couples aged 18-29 are unmarried. 'The future of marriage may depend,' as an analysis of that last figure by the Gallup Organization remarks, 'on whether young people simply delay marriage or sidestep it altogether.' Society generally and children especially have an interest in encouraging these couples to get and stay married.

"One way to do that is to signal, legally and culturally, that marriage is not just one of many interchangeable 'lifestyles,' but the gold standard for committed relationships. For generations, both law and culture signaled that marriage is the ultimate commitment, uniquely binding and uniquely honored; that everyone could and should aspire to marry; and that marriage is especially important for couples with children. Same-sex marriage may be the first opportunity the country has had in decades to climb back up the slippery slope and say, quite dramatically, that marriage--not co-habitation, not partnership, not civil union, but marriage--is society's first choice."

-- Jonathan Rauch (of the Brookings Institution), "Family's Value" (requires login; try bugmenot.com), New Republic, 2005-05-25 (quote appears on secong page of article, link is to first page)

So, my speedometer is reading 135-140 MPH, and I decide to post to LiveJournal about it[*] ...

No, I mean right now, as I'm typing this, the speedometer of my car is registering in excess of 135 MPH.

I'm not making this up -- come on over and look through the car window. Then ring my doorbell and offer me a jump start, and we'll see what the speedometer says when the electrical system has the right voltage supplied to it. (If I turn the key to the "on" position, the speedometer drops to 120 and the tachometer climbs up a bit from zero; if I try to engage the starter, the tach drops back to zero and the spedometer pegs again. I wonder whether I can translate those readings to the actual voltage in on the battery, or this behavious is just a random quirk of the system. I never had a clue that my guages were electric until now, since they're needles, not illuminated digits.)

In the meantime, having observed that I went into a ten minute "one stress too many: bad day" brain-freeze trying to decide what to do, whom to call, etc., I'm going to eat a slightly too-big bowl of instant mashed potatoes with lots of pepper, extra butter, oregano, and a pile o' grated cheddar, and Postpone Coping until this evening. Maybe I'll even sleep. And drink decaf Earl Grey tea. Then I'll start finding out who is local and has time to come lend me several electrons tonight or tomorrow morning.

(The Jury Commissioner's office insisted that I get out of bed way too early, I had my lights on for the parking garage, I failed to remember them when I got home, and left them on ... and three or four hours later, I got back in the car and the battery was flat. Maybe the terribly annoying (and currently broken) door/keys/lights beepchime is good for something after all. So anywho, yeah, I done it to me'self, but the result for now remains: one thing wrong too many and not enough sleep, and I'm just not dealing right now.)

And for the record, no, I've never actually driven 130+ MPH in this car. I don't think I've exceeded 115 MPH since that time in Ewok's Oldsmobile on the NJ Turnpike.

[*] That's not what they mean by "high speed Internet"?