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Who would have thought Glen Quagmire respects marriage more than the feminist Democrats attacking Mike Pence. Preview Open
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Life is about making choices. Lots of choices. Most of them are minor ones: what to cook for dinner, what book to read next, whether to take a walk. But some of our choices are significant, and they call to us to take notice of them. We can try to ignore them, but I think that G-d walks around with a two-by-four (or sends a guardian angel to do the work) and gives us a good solid whack to help us pay attention and step up. That usually gets my attention, and I try to discern what is calling to me.
People of Ricochet, I am back. Just in time to sort out your love lives in the two weeks we have until Valentine’s Day.
Something is killing us — beyond the fact that life itself is a terminal condition. This week brought news that the US mortality rate overall has risen slightly since 2014. “It’s a definite milestone in the wrong direction, and the concern a lot of us have is that it reflects largely the approximately three-decade-long epidemic of obesity,” Stephen Sidney, a California research scientist, told the Wall Street Journal. Death rates rose for eight of the 10 leading causes, including heart disease, stroke, chronic respiratory disease, injuries (including drug overdoses), diabetes, kidney disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and suicide. Cancer death rates continue to decline, and influenza deaths were unchanged. The uptick in deaths means that life expectancy rates for babies born today have dropped a bit.
ually part ways before college and their role would be to mitigate the damage of broken hearts. The years rolled by, and as the kids matured into beautiful young adults, their love seemed to grow stronger. Then one dreadful night, her Facebook status changed to “single.” It would turn out to be their first and last attempt at a breakup. The next day, the decision was cast; they would trustingly soldier through a long-distance, exclusive relationship through their college years. He worked hard toward only two goals: to get through school as quickly as possible, and to land a good job so they could marry as soon as possible. He graduated, landed a great job, and proposed; she accepted. This last Saturday night, at the tender age of 23, my son Eric was finally married.
Let’s call this the most unsurprising headline of the year so far “Marriage Increases The Odds Of Surviving Cancer, Studies Find.” Next thing you know they’ll be discovering that salt makes you thirsty. I’m not actually belittling the science, more the opposite. Even the most cursory glance at social science data accumulated over the past, oh, 150 years, provides copious evidence that we humans do better pair-bonded for life. And if data doesn’t convince you, there’s also literature, anecdote, tradition, and intuition. But let’s stick with science for now.
Online zooming up. Family and church networks (and college, too) plummeting.
