hear hear, or else we won't...

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Going off the record:

I can't help feeling that an important educational window is closing with the demise of record stores. Yes, it will be easier and cheaper to get the piece you already know you want online. But what about the piece or the genre you didn't know about until you started browsing through the records in places like Tower? How are you going to learn about Hindemith or Art Tatum if you don't know about them already? Online music destroys many barriers while erecting others. The liberation of discovery won't be impossible in the new world, but I fear it might be a bit harder.

From the Clueless about "families" department...

TimesDispatch.com | Group seeks change in divorce law:

The Family Foundation of Virginia, a conservative organization that touts family values, says it will push for reform in Virginia's divorce laws.

Victoria Cobb, the organization president, told a news conference today that the foundation will seek legislation in the upcoming General Assembly to require mutual consent for divorce in families with minor children.

Under Virginia's current no-fault divorce law, one spouse can end the marriage.

Cobb acknowledged that the issue is complicated. To date the organization has not found a sponsor of the proposed legislation.

These nutballs were heavy sponsors of the VA Gay Marriage Ban, including being overtly deceptive about what the second paragraph means in terms of its impact on personal contract law and the degree to which it puts the state of VA deeply into conflict with federal law on that subject.

So, they want to paint this as if its just a case of getting a divorce just because you "don't love them anymore".

Well, its not.  If there's something approaching communication and its clear one doesn't love the other, they'll usually settle the divorce mutually.

That's not the problem.

The problem is this: abuse.

MOST one-sided divorce cases are because of four possibilities.

1. The husband is abusing the wife.
2. The father is abusing the child.
3. The spouse is abusing his or her self through addictions (alcohol, drugs, gambling) that directly harm the rest of the family.
4. The spouse is in jail for a long time and is a liability on the family, especially if its for one of those three that reach the point of getting the law involved.

If someone is abusing the child but its in ways that aren't directly physical and therefore not overtly illegal, then the other spouse should by all means remove the child and themselves from the abuser.  Period.

Granted, there's odd cases where the REAL abuser is the one doing the accusations, as Law and Order likes to show at least once a season, but the reality is that most people aren't so self-deluded.  If anything they're self-deluded into trying to imagine or act like there isn't a problem when there is.

At any rate, this is, just like the attack on gay marriage, an attack on personal choice in matters that do not affect them at all, all based on an extremely artificial interpretation of what "family" is supposed to be, and not what dysfunctional families really are and the pain one side goes through when they can't leave the source of abuse.

It should not be on the part of the state to decide whether or not a divorce is justified.  It should only act to make sure it is fair.  You can't MAKE people stay together, so quit trying.

To force people to stay married when one really can't live with the other merely because you think GOD told you to is to put a law on the books strictly for YOUR religious beliefs, and that is UTTERLY unconstitutional.

The illusion of family shouldn't be worth destroying the reality of the Constitution nor the reality of personal choice and self-responsibility that Jesus calls us to.