Eighteen years of family law practice has caused me to develop a persona of a frustrated advice columnist. Today’s Dear Abby column demonstrates why family law attorneys will never run out of business. A man writes: DEAR ABBY: My fiancee, “Vanessa,” and I have been engaged almost a year. We’re to be married in three months. [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Popular Culture’
Have we no shame?
Fyodor Dostoevsky said “The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.” What do articles like this excellent Glenn Smith piece in Sunday’s Charleston Post & Courier, documenting the death of a young man in a South Carolina prison, or the recent United States Supreme Court opinion in Brown v. [...]
Weiner v. Wu
I thought our culture was acting silly when it forced Congressman Anthony Weiner from office for twittering his junk to a 30 year old woman and then lying about it. However, Congressman David Wu’s recent resignation after it was disclosed he had a sexual encounter with an 18 year old girl is just. I base [...]
Dan Savage on the virtues of infidelity
An interesting piece in tomorrow’s New York Times Sunday Magazine, Married, with Infidelities, highlights my favorite relationship advice columnist, Dan Savage, and his views on marriage and monogamy. In his relationship column, Savage Love, Dan observes many of the same problems with contemporary marriage that I see in my divorce practice: the tensions and conflicts [...]
How stringent is the definition of monogamy?
I went with my wife, Karen, to see Ted and Melanie at Theatre 99 for Piccolo Fringe on Friday night. Noticing a number of women alone or in pairs carrying six packs of beer or bottles of wine, I posted to Facebook: @ Piccolo Fringe. Numerous attractive young women carrying copious amounts of alcohol. I feel like [...]
Trusting our children
My oldest daughter graduated from high school earlier this week. The original plan was to buy her a multi-gear bicycle for use at the college she will be attending in Portland, Oregon this fall (given Charleston’s flat terrain, a one-speed cruiser has been sufficient so far). When my parents indicated their desire to buy her [...]
Not (merely?) unclothed: covered up
The unarrival of the rapture on May 21, 2011 got me thinking about how the rapture would actually appear if it ever takes place. We are told that when the rapture occurs believers will be whisked away to heaven with their clothes left strewn on the ground where they were located at that exact moment. [...]
God gave us children so that death wouldn’t be so disappointing?
Walking through the Charleston market today I spotted a t-shirt for sale that read “God gave us children so that death wouldn’t be so disappointing.” I’m not squeamish about t-shirts. In college I wore many vulgar t-shirts that I am now too embarrassed to discuss. I still enjoy wearing or gifting t-shirts that are mildly [...]