Letter Writer Didn't Get It

The woman who sent this recent E-mail of the Day to Dr. Laura misread/ignored a very important word said (written) by a man. Hard to believe, I know. I have no idea if Dr. Laura (who is on vacation) actually read this letter herself or not.

I know exactly where the man being quoted is coming from. Whether you, dear reader, agree or not, the man is operating under the very common understanding that men want sex, and women want attention, a bill-payer (at least to buy dinner/entertainment/gifts while dating), a bodyguard, a chauffeur, and a stronger/taller person to do her bidding.

The woman who sent the letter starts off:

Dr. Laura,

It's soooo hard being a woman who is waiting out there.

By "waiting" she means not having sex until married.

When the rest of the women give it up for free, the men won't even give me a chance.

The phrase "for free" implies she expects to get paid for sex. "Without commitment" might be a better phrase, but I could quibble with that one, too. She's right, though, that smart or even just lazy men are going to seek the path of least resistance to getting whatever it is they want.

Then again she might not be attractive.

Kid-Oriented Life

I've heard Dennis Prager talk about this. Somewhere along the way, we shifted. Even though so many children are dumped in institutions from the earliest ages because their parents won't change their lives for them, parodixically we have allowed kids to become our masters. When I was a kid, toys and other kid stuff stayed in our bedrooms or a designated playroom. Now they are cluttering our entire home. A parent might come to one of our games or school musical performances, now both/all parents are expected to come to all of those things every time. Kids used to have to endure adult conversations at the dinner table until the adults excused them. Good luck with that now.

And then there are the kid birthday party. Every kid needs a big party every year. And the parents of the invited kid guests have to be there, too.

So on a Saturday morning, I end up at a 2 year-old's birthday party. There was no need for me to accompany my wife and kids there, but my wife is trying to make the mother her best friend, and so of course I am supposed to come along to help keep our bratty kids in line and because my wife hopes I will be good friends with the father. That way I'd have even less ability of keep my old friendships going. Not that I have time for them anyway, with my family obligations. But since my wife didn't pick them, she'd just prefer I not have them. They aren't clones of us, and so she can't relate.

It was really interesting to have my wife shower ahead of this party, and to get out of bed and get ready to go much easier than with just about anything else. These days, she usually sleeps as much as she can as long as I will be around to keep the kids from killing each other. And she doesn't seem to care to shower on account that there might be the possibility of making love. Her choosing not to shower in a given day is a big sign to me that she doesn't want me. I tried to take advantage of her having just showered, but she was tired. Of course.

This is definitely worth over half of everything I'll ever earn. Isn't it?

Bad Things and Theism

I don't know if anything has happened to Dr. Laura in her personal life, beyond seeing a friend of hers die not too long ago after an awful fight with cancer (which can certainly be devastating to see), but now she has gotten to the point of saying she is offended by the Theistic beliefs and related prayers of her callers. I was just listening to the second hour of yesterday's show and she had to make a point of it when a caller who'd witnessed a death as a result of a car accident says she now prays before driving.

Dr. Laura has a skeptical background, but went through a time of being an observant Orthodox Jew before giving that up after, she has explained, being disillusioned by some others in that community. She also has said she had talked with a famous Christian minister who told her to think of the Gospel as a metaphor, from which she inferred that even he didn't believe miracles were real in the literal sense. (Connecting the dots to other things she has said, I suspect that minister is Robert Schuller, which would not surprise most Christians the way she thinks it would.)

She encourages families to be active in their faith communities, preaches right and wrong as though there is an objective morality, yet has strongly implied she doesn't believe in an afterlife and continually expresses what appears to be Deism, if not Atheism, now to the point of, like I said, stating she is offended by prayers as asking Him to keep someone alert as a driver.

If there is a God, He can intervene in life. If there is a God who has called us to pray, what is wrong with praying for strength, alertness, etc. as long as one takes the reasonable actions they can? It isn't like the caller said she stays up for 72 hours before driving and prays for alertness. I realize the "IF" is a big one.

I will pray that Dr. Laura finds peace. I hope (another word she doesn't like to hear from callers) that doesn't offend her, because it is not meant as a dig. She has done so much good and I don't want to see her in anguish over what is wrong or broken in this life. Yes, there is much broken in this world. I am convinced God has provided a way to overcome that brokenness. If there was anybody who didn't deserve a painful and early death, it was the Jew we know as Jesus. Yet it is through that sacrifice we are reconciled to God, and we can look forward to the redemption of the world from sickness, suffering, and sin. That is not some wishful thinking on my part. It is a conviction based on consideration of facts, facts she can investigate herself if she so chooses. She may find a renewed passion for preaching the morals she does. After all, if there is no God concerned with what we do, and no cosmic justice (an afterlife involving rewards and punishments) then what objective reason is there for any given caller or listener or reader to put aside selfishness for the sake of their spouse, their child, or anyone else?

It's the Middle of February

Here we are again. It's another Valentine's Day.

Fortunately for me, my wife likes to celebrate a different day, as one of our anniversaries falls close to February 14.

It's my year to plan.

Hey, I know, how about we plan a nice session of "How Did Our Sex Life Deteriorate To Doing It Once Every Two Weeks and You Wanting to Get It Over With More Quickly?"

Ah yes. Probably has something to do with one or more of the many, many medications she takes.

Which is one big reason I didn't want a wife who needed such medications.

Hey, let's go out on a date and... talk about the kids. Because what else do we have going on in our lives?

KFI's New Host

KFI AM 640, a ratings leader in recent years in Los Angeles, is a talk radio station owned by Clear Channel, which is scores of billions of dollars in debt. Clear Channel just changed their Left-leaning talk station in the same market, 1150 AM, into a right-wing format. Rush Limbaugh is now on 1150 and will soon be off 640. To fill up the 9am to Noon slot, KFI will now have the Bill Handel show run until 10am and the Bill Carrol show will shift two hours earlier. But this will leave the 1pm to 3pm slot open.

As far as I know, KFI hasn't announced who will fill that slot. I've noticed the station has been trying hard to have "diversity" on the weekends, but what about during the week? It's all white males, mostly heterosexual with the possible exception of Ken (but since he doesn't talk about hi sexual orientation it really doesn't count) and he definite exception of the might-as-well-be-gay Bill Handel, who, by the way, is a Latino Jew.

So I propose they find for their afternoon slot a black illegal alien transgendered disabled lesbian Wiccan Green Party partisan. Who cares whether or not the show will be any good? They need diversity.

UPDATE February 11, 2014: They filled the spot with a couple of local television news folks. Mark Thompson, who's been appearing on the Tim Conway Jr. Show and filling in here and there (and who has quite the voice), and Elizabeth Espinosa. Thompson is not to be confused with the "Mark & Brian" guy. Thompson is also not to be confused with a young ample-chested woman, which is why he's no longer doing the weather on TV. I have nothing against these two, but I doubt I will be choosing them over Michael Medved.

Questions For Dr. Laura Schlessinger - 7

Read the introduction to this series here. This will be the last in this series for now. And there have been plenty of questions.

19) You say minors should not have certain tech things and then say your  generation survived youth without smart phones, tablets, and online  social networking. But generations before yours surived youth without technological/communications/media/social things you enjoyed as a minor. Shall we all live like the Amish?

20) You say grownups should not have personal Facebook accounts. How would they comment on your shows’s Facebook page if they didn’t? Are you aware that Facebook settings are customizable, so that, for example, only family has access to your personal Facebook page?

21) You say that a spouse who has not shared every password is hiding something they shouldn’t and/or is doing something unacceptable. Do you say the same thing about a person who does not always have their spouse present when they are in a therapy session? I realize that writing and other computerized activities are not the same as doing pushups when you’re on the phone with a show host, but they can be therapeutic.

22) How is it that interacting through online/telephonic communications is not a real relationship, but it is infidelity for a spouse to interact with someone else that way?

23) According to you, it is OK to fantasize, including about other people, when having sex. It is also OK to watch television, watch movies, and play board games. However, you denounce people who like fantasy in movies, video games, etc. and play video games in general as childish. What are the differences, other than your personal preferences?

24) I have heard you give what I would consider perfect answers to wives complaining to you that their good husband who does not neglect them views porn. However, when women call to say the same thing about their boyfriends, you tell them to dump him. Why is that? Are you just trying to save the boyfriend from becoming a nagged husband? Or is it that a married man is “entitled” to orgasms encouraged through visual/auditory stimulation because he’s paying for them, but the boyfriend is not, and thus it is morally unacceptable?

Questions For Dr. Laura Schlessinger – 6

Read the introduction to this series here.


16) When someone calls and says they no longer share the religious beliefs or devotion of their spouse, which may include no longer believing what  the religious organization to which they belong claims about itself (for example, being the one and only true church), you give priority to family harmony in a unified family religion over the caller’s conviction of conscience. On what criteria have you adopted these priorities?

I ask because I’m convinced that there are organizations with doctrines and practices that are ultimately harmful, and that I am first and foremost accountable to God, and that God has called me to avoid supporting religious organizations that promote serious error with my time, money, effort, or presence. For example, by implying with my silence and continued attendance that I support such an organization (and, almost invariably, being expected to perform duties on behalf of  that organization), I would be contributing to leading my own children and other people astray.

You may see all religious organizations that don’t promote terrorist bombings as more or less the same, but even from a secular perspective, they are not. Some, for example, avoid certain medical treatments. Some strongly discourage contact with family or friends who are no longer with the organization. Some make it nearly impossible to leave the organization without ongoing harassment.

Of course I have my own biases. For example, I’d want a newly atheist spouse to keep quiet and still take the family to a good Christian church. However, if someone has figured out that their “name it and claim it” televangelist church is not a healthy place to be, I would want them to try to get the rest of the family to switch to a better church. My bias comes from being convinced that there is a God who cares about our relationship to Him and has communicated to us how to worship Him and think about Him. Your priority seems to place more importance on making things comfortable and stable for children in the immediate here and now, but where does that priority come from?

17) Why is it so hard to believe that a “bush” could “burn” and not be destroyed if there is an omnipotent God involved? Either you believe in an omnipotent God who has intervened in in the world or you don’t. If there is no God to whom we are accountable and no afterlife, why is it wrong for someone to be entirely selfish and disregard your moral claims? What is the downside to them?

18) You illustrate well your point that children aren’t to give to/take care of parents by telling the story of the bird who starts to rescue each of his three chicks but only saves the last one, because the last one promises to pay it forward instead of repaying the parent directly. However, that story doesn’t explain HOW you arrived at your position or why someone else should adopt it. Why should someone make the next generation a priority and not give to the previous generation? If your answer is "survival of the species", why should anyone care if the species survives or not?

I Can't Unscramble the Eggs

These days, it seems more and more like I made a mistake in getting married and having children. This, in turn, has led to mistakes like buying the wrong house and a bunch of other mistakes.

As it stands now:

1) I do not think I am being a good enough husband.

2) I do not think I am being a good enough father.

3) We are not taking care of our future like we should.

Pertaining to #3: From a secular perspective, what is a man’s primary responsibility in life? It is, over his lifetime, producing more value than he consumes, so as to contribute to society rather than being a burden on it. There are times someone is going to be dependent, such as childhood at one end of life and elderly decline at the other end, and maybe some times of severe illness or injury in between. However, these times are supposed to be offset by the productive times. Ultimately, it is taking sunlight and other natural resources, our imagination, and the knowledge of those who came before us, and producing.

Raising children can be productive. Obviously, without the raising of children, society ceases to exist as the human race disappears. However, it is only if those children are raised to also be net producers does raising children help. Otherwise, they can be a severe burden.

A man should only take on raising children if he can not only be productive enough for himself, but for raising his children, and that includes being productive, and equipped enough, for marriage and has found the right woman to be his wife.

Questions For Dr. Laura Schlessinger – 5

Read the introduction to this series here.

15) How should the division of labor be delineated between husband and wife when the husband works full time (and perhaps plus) as the sole income earner and the wife is a full-time ”stay-at-home” mom?

Just shy of 18 minutes into the first hour of the January 22 show/podcast, Dr. Laura took a call from a woman who is married with five children. The wife was calling to say that her husband, the sole income earner, doesn’t do enough of the domestic chores. Dr. Laura indicated that this husband was a terrible guy for not doing some of the domestic chores.

Okay, I understand Dr. Laura’s opinion on that. I do some of the domestic chores at home despite being the sole income earner.

Except… I’ve heard (recently, mind you) Dr. Laura respond to another SAHM complaining that her income-earner hubby wasn’t doing domestic chores by asking if the caller was ready to go into the office and do some of her husband’s work for him. Dr. Laura made it clear that the domestic chores were the responsibility of the SAHM.

Why the difference in answers?

Is there a magic number of children that make domestic chores part of the husband’s role? I think whenever Dr. Laura hears “five children” it triggers thoughts of Andrea Yates. She’s even brought Yates up with other calls. Dr. Laura readily admits one child was enough work for her. So, if it is a matter of the number of children, does it matter who pushed to have that many children? And what if a SAHM caller sounds overwhelmed with one or two children? Surely it is possible for a woman to pull an Andrea Yates even if she only has one or two children. Many have.

Questions For Dr. Laura Schlessinger – 4

 Read the introduction to this series here.

12) You have confirmed what loyal listeners should already have figured out: that you have a high IQ. Given that your IQ is higher than many of your callers, and you have many decades of experience dealing with the family dynamics of thousands of people, isn’t it ever possible that one of your callers or the spouse thereof hasn’t thought through everything as extensively as you? Here’s an example: A woman calls with a problem with her 19 year-old son, who lives with her and her husband, who is the boy’s father, who is not opposed to the son continuing to live with them for now. The caller isn't trying to figure out how to move her son out, but you focus on that anyway. You insist this means that the caller’s husband does not want to be alone with her. Isn’t it possible, however, that he simply hasn’t thought about it that way? Maybe, right or wrong, he doesn’t want his son to have to worry about roommates and fleabag apartments while he’s trying to get through college and start a career? Maybe he likes the help around the house?


13) You have insisted that every caller who has a problem with their spouse MUST have seen the problem or the warning signs before they married, because people can’t act for that long without revealing their true selves. OK, let’s say they dated for two years before they married. Since they are not shacking up, because that would be wrong, they’re going to restaurants, going to movies, sharing holidays, hopefully going through intense premarital counseling with a MFT for what, one hour per week?

You say it isn’t possible for people to put on an act that long. However, don’t people do that all of the time with other things in life? For example, undercover law enforcement officers, con artists and frauds do this for a living. Some employes do this five days a week for 8+ hours per day, for years. You tell unhappy or discontented spouses to act, sometimes for years, for the sake of a peaceful home.

I know it is preferable to find something in the caller’s actions that were problematic because then the caller has the power to change thing, and usually, I’m sure, there were warning signs the caller should have seen, but there are incentives for people to hide their true selves when seeking marriage, It could be for immigration fraud, for financial gain, or due to religious, familial, professional, or social pressure. So is it really impossible to there to have ever been a caller who couldn't possibly have seen the warnings ahead of time?


14) You often note second marriages with children have a 75% divorce rate, and ask callers if they'd get on airplane with the same chance of crashing. However, a graphic posted on your show's Facebook page notes that first marriages have a 41% divorce rate - and that's just divorce, not how many are miserable but don't divorce, or cases in which one spouse dies young or slips into a coma, goes to prison, or kills the other. Would you fly on an airplane with THAT failure rate? I agree people should be warned about second marriages, but shouldn’t they be warned at least half as strongly about first marriages? You may argue that second marriages are not necessary, but neither are first marriages. Would you consider giving a commentary on how to reduce the risks of a second marriage failing? I’m aware that you are concerned about children, and while first marriages without children, by definition, don’t bring children into the mix from the start, most first marriages will end up involving children. So shouldn't people be strongly warned when it comes to getting married at all? "Choose wisely" is a start, but is that really strong enough?

Perfect Timing

It is amazing how my wife "just happens" to pick fights or lays out a long list of complaints about me and/or makes demands about how I need to change (things I never do to her, by the way) a couple of hours before we're due to have sex. Yes, due to have sex. Oh, I wanted sex the days/nights before, but she kept putting it off. Yes, men, get married, and you too can schedule sex, but be prepared for that flight to be canceled. Scheduling makes it all the more easy for a wife to figure out ways to avoid sex with you.

It's funny, all of the women I fornicated with in my wayward youth seemed to want to have sex with me. They're the ones who initiated it into our relationship to begin with, and if we'd subsequently spent any amount of time together in private and did not have some form of sex, they would be concerned and want to know what was wrong.

It is times like this I can't regret having fornicated, because if I hadn't, I'd be damn near suicidal at this point thinking I must be completely repulsive and a terrible lover.

Yes, all of you guys who aren't married but haven't ruled it out of your future - you too can sign a legal document that will: 1) obligate you to give up more than half of everything you'll ever earn and make lifetime payments to a woman who will hate you; 2) automatically assign you paternity of any children she has, even if she conceived them with some genetic basket case while you were working your ass off at the office, and 3) give her default status as your beneficiary and the person who can make decisions for you should you become incapacitated. In return, the law guarantees you... uh... the responsibility of making decisions for her should she become incapacitated. What a deal! What are you waiting for??? You must be some immature boy or immoral cad to not want that!

Oh, by the way, the thing that apparently (who really knows with such irrational creatures) set her off this time? I kid you not, she is upset I did not perjure myself to get out of jury duty because it might... might... interfere with her social plans for a day - social plans I was key to facilitate in the first place by begging like a dog for a favor I can't possibly repay. I did it to make her happy. How ironic is that?

Questions For Dr. Laura Schlessinger (and others) - 3

Please read the essential introduction to this series.

4) In an era where women now have full access to every area of educational, training, and professional life, earning income, investing, banking, credit, and financial management, and women are able and expected to move out of their family home and pay their own way through unmarried life, why should a man be required, let alone expected, to always pay for a date (unless she cooks a meal for him)? If your response is "men value what they pay for" are you saying women value things other people pay for, but not what they pay for? If you say "in nature, the male demonstrates", why are we to adhere to that aspect of nature but not so many others? Why is her time more valuable than his?

5) You have said that a man should not be dating unless he is prepared to financially support a wife and children. You have also said that dating is to discern if someone is a match to marry. Does this mean that people who will not ever marry should never go on dates, even with people of like mind? Does this mean that men who will never be in a position to support a wife and children should never go on dates, even with women who will not be having children (or have grown children) and who plan to continue to support themselves? It now takes most men at least until their late 20s to be in a position to support a wife and children (if they ever will be). Should he never date at all before that, even to learn what kind of person he gets along with, or for mere entertainment?

6) You say a man should not be having sex with a woman without marrying her or at least being engaged with a ring and date. How did you arrive at that conclusion? If you cite the possibility of conception, does this mean it is OK for a man to have sex with a woman outside of marriage if at least one of them is incapable of having children?

7) You only find strict monogamy acceptable – for example, that having a one-night-threesome is an absolute no. I agree that married monogamy is what is moral. My primary basis for this is the Christian Bible. What is the basis of your rule? If you cite marital vows, what if "forsaking all others" wasn't one of their vows, or wasn't vowed with the meaning of excluding all sexual contact with anyone else?

8) You sometimes ask how a man explains it to the father of the woman with whom he's fornicating. Yet you never ask how she explains it to his mother. Why should an explanation be needed in one case but not the other?

9) With your principle (and mine) of reserving sex for marriage and that men should be the income earners, your touting of community property, use of the term "unpaid whore" for women who shack up, your suggestion that unmarried women get $250 for each session of sex, your statements that "you're not even making him pay for dinner" and "you girls are giving it away for free", and your insistence that men pay for almost all dates, aren't you saying that men should pay for sex? Doesn't that imply that women do not enjoy sex and should only engage in it as a means for material gain? Doesn't that imply that men shouldn't care whether a woman enjoys sex or not? After all, are we to care if our hired help likes their tasks or not? You (like many others) refer to mutual consented fornication as a man using a woman, but never say they are using each other or she is also using him. Why is that? If a woman who shacks up is an unpaid whore, why doesn't that make a married woman a paid whore? Why do you call them unpaid when, in some cases, he is paying all of her expenses and buying her gifts over and above that?

10) I agree that sex is for marriage and that shacking up is a bad idea. Here is a question I have for just about anyone: How is a man supposed to know about what kind of a mother or sexual partner a woman will be before he "lays down his life" for her? People aren't always consistent, so a someone being generally reasonable about most things in life and willing to negotiate and being compatible through dating/courtship and planning a wedding doesn’t necessarily mean they will be generally reasonable when it comes to parenting or willing to negotiate about sexual issues. Some hangups and quirks will not be discovered until actually having sex or actually living together.

11) You have said shacking up can’t involve any commitment, regardless of the explicitly stated mutual agreements of those involved, even if they have children together, because marriage is what makes the relationship committed. Thus, a caller has no right to complain about what the shack up honey is doing. You have also said that if someone has married, thus making public vows and signing legal documents, they have no obligation to work through marital problems if they have no children. For example, you tell women who call you with a problem in their marriage to leave and go home to their mother, So is marriage the commitment or is having children the commitment? Or does a commitment only exist if they have married and had children? With wide cultural acceptance of no-fault divorce at the will of only one of the spouses, is marriage actually a commitment to anything other than having a community property financial partnership? Also, do no other vows, promises, or stated commitments in any area of life have any moral weight unless they include a legal contract? For example, if someone said they were going to do something useful for your sailing hobby, do you really have no moral right to call him on it if he doesn’t, because he never signed a legal contract?

A Generational Divide

I interrupt my series of questions for Dr. Laura with examples from yesterday's show that might explain some of the questions in the series.

The Call of the Day yesterday was from the first hour:

Shane (caller, female): I'm calling about a dating situation. I've been seeing someone for a little over a month. I've developed feelings for him. I'm definitely not ready to be a relationship him, because I don't trust him enough to have sex with him yet. I find myself-

Laura [Interrupting]: Shane, stop. You're not even ashamed of what you just said.

Questions For Dr. Laura Schlessinger - 2

Read the introduction to this series here.

3) Along the same lines as question #1, what exactly are you expecting fathers to do when setting right their teen children, their daughter's boyfriend, etc.? Yes, a father can beat his chest, flex his muscles, clean his guns, talk in a loud, commanding voice, give stern looks, get in someone's face, etc. But if push literally comes to shove, the father faces arrest for child abuse and/or assault. Fathers are obligated to provide for their children. They can’t kick them out. They can't physically restrain them. They can't slap sense into them. They can't refuse to take care of them. The authorities will side with the teen, and so will many wives and the other parents. Young males today know this. So while they may not want their girlfriend's father yelling in their face, they know if her father touches them, he (they boyfriend) will own the father.

This macho dad stuff may have worked back "in the day" in certain places, but these days, a husband/father has no power if the others involved do not "let" him have any. I wish fathers still had the kind of power you tell them to act like they have. They don't. Not legally, anyway. This is the world we've created.

If you have answers to ANY of these questions, or you want to make a comment, please do.

Questions For Dr. Laura Schlessinger - 1

If you read this blog, you know that I love the Dr. Laura Schlessinger Show, and I think Dr. Laura is great, and I agree with her almost all of the time and I think she’s doing a heckuva lot of good. She's made my life better, she's helped me be a better person, and she's done the same for many, many people.

It is because I am such a fan of her show, books, etc. that I know what she says well enough that I can have these questions for her (unlike people who have no clue and mockingly ask questions). These questions are not intended to be traps. I am not playing "gotcha". I'd really like to know if there are answers. It is difficult to give commentary and take calls for 3 hours per day, 5 days per week, plus everything else she does and to never misspeak or never put things in a way that could have been put better or never misunderstand what a caller has said.

I value consistency, basing things on principles, values, etc., and Dr. Laura is almost always consistent and clear about principles. Maybe there is some principle or bit of knowledge I am not seeing that would clear up my questions. Maybe she will give clarification on her show in a commentary, since she doesn’t take questions like this as calls – she only deals with a supposedly real-life situation faced by the caller. I think answering these questions would make her show even better because I'm probably not the only listener who has these questions.

I was going to do one long posting of all the questions, but that would take too long, I couldn't wait any longer, and people tend to skip over lost walls of text anyway, so I've decided to turn this into a series, starting with what was probably the original question I wanted to ask anyway:

Messing With Talk Show Callers

I'm a sucker for some of the ways audio talk show hosts mess with callers. While the newscast of Robin Quivers was my favorite consistent feature of the Howard Stern Show (which I haven't heard since it went to satellite), one of my favorite occasional bits was when Howard would take a call from someone like Ian the Drunk and put other callers on with him, or when he'd take two callers on hold and connect them with each other, priming the pump with the occasional drop. Nobody beats Phil Hendrie, of course, who made a career out of messing with callers.

Two things Tom Leykis does that have always made me laugh hard:

1) When the caller asks "Is this Tom?" or says "I want to talk to Tom" right after Tom has started the call by identifying himself, and Tom handles it by saying, “Oh, did you want to talk to Tom?” and then does his whole set-up again, which includes the buffer music. I've heard him keep that up for an entire segment so that the caller never gets to say what he or she wanted to say.

2) When the caller has not turned off the show on their listening device, and rather than telling them (again) to turn it down/off, Tom tells them to turn it up - as loud as it will go. I heard one time, back when he was on FM radio, when he let the call loop back on itself what must have been a dozen times.

I guess I’m still a 13 year-old boy in some ways.

Jumping the Shill

I think he's dead wrong on certain things, but the Bill Handel Show is a regular part of my morning radio habit. I enjoy the rest of the on-air staff, including the traffic/aviation expert Mike Nolan, and Handel himself is often the perfect target for jokes by his cohosts. It is more the show itself than Handel that gets me, as evidenced by how I still enjoy listening (and often enjoy it more) when someone is filling in for Bill. With most other shows, the moment I hear that there's a guest host I catch up on my backlog of podcasts. I 've always liked Walter E. Williams filling in for Limbaugh, and I'll often listen to Mark Steyn, too.

Anyway, Handel reads a lot of the ads that run on his show, often including his personal testimonials, sometimes live but often recorded. Maybe I'm just grouchy, but in recent weeks his ads have jumped the shark for me. It's not like I was rushing out to buy the stuff he was advertising anyway, but I've been turned off the last couple of weeks. I'm finding his ads irritating and annoying. It probably isn't Handel himself, but rather the copy. For example, he's been promoting a weight loss company that has brick & mortar locations. He says the reason it works is "accountability". Since you have to show up and be weighed in front of the people who are helping you to lose weight (mind you, you are paying those people) you don't want to disappoint them. Really? Really? People who don't give a rodent's behind about how their spouse feels about them gaining and retaining weight are going to care what someone they're employing thinks? In some of the ads, he's even used the word "magic". Get out of here. In another ad, Handel is trying to convince people to buy advertising on the station, which is owned by Clear Channel. Maybe it is a sign of desperation from a corporation that has tens of billions of dollars in debt? Part of what irritates me about the ad is that is claims to tell us what the "smart" people are doing. Because, you know, you are a flipping idiot.

Maybe it isn't Handel, because there's a McDonald's ad that various people, like different traffic reporters, have been reading that has been irritating me. I don't care if their coffee is made from "real Arabica beans" or the eggs in their breakfast are "fluffy". In fact, I'd rather the word "fluffy" not be used to describe meaty food.

I'm rapidly turning into a grumpy old man, apparently.

Thanksgiving Reminder

Oh, there's so much I could tell you, so much I've wanted to say, but I haven't gotten around to editing my thoughts into a publishable post, because I've been too busy with them mundane things in life. I did have a very nice day that was out of the ordinary recently, but other than that, it has all been about grinding away at the job to support the family, and doing my chores, errands, and parenting stuff. The wife seems happy enough, she's pleasant enough to be around, but I think things could be a heckuva lot better. Ah, but before I know it, barring something happening even sooner, I'll be an old man and dying and it really won't matter. That's something that has been weighing on my mind a lot lately. I could easily live as long as I have so far. Time passes by more slowly when we're younger, perhaps in part because so much of what we're experiencing is new. And if it seems like just yesterday that I was a kid, then it'll seem like tomorrow that I'll be a dying old man. Nice thought, eh? Anyway, below is an annual reminder I'm now running for the third time. If you haven't done so already, you should really really how my Thanksgiving went last year. [- November 14, 2013]


It is that time of the year again - when married people endure problem in-laws and everyone has to deal with their own problem family members, and when some unmarried people sitting around a Thanksgiving meal endure from family the questioning, nagging, teasing, and whatever else about why they're not married or why they don't have kids yet.

Don't get me wrong. I think it is acceptable to ask a family member who is currently expecting a child and will not be giving the child up for adoption about getting married. But if someone isn't in that position, they should not have to endure yearly or more frequent pressure from other family members about getting married.

See a previous posting of mine on this subject and a more recent one.

If you have endured such questioning, have you come up with any good things to say that stop the questioning and pressure?

The answers would likely be different depending on one's personal beliefs and the general family's traditional belief. For example, if the family is very religious and so are you, you can say, "God just hasn't brought me the right person yet."

But if most people at the table aren't religious, especially not you, it is very easy (at least for a man) to reply honestly with, "What would I get by being married that I can't get being unmarried?"

Either way, perhaps a good response is...

"I like my life the way it is right now. I get to do what I want when I want. Nobody argues or fights with me, or nags me in my own home. I never have to sleep on the couch. I get to have my place the way I like it. And I get to come here and endure this line of questioning from the likes of you instead of having to spend the holiday with someone else's family."

Two common questions asked of those with no plans to marry are, "Aren't you worried about growing old alone?" and the related "Don't you want someone to take care of you?"

But plenty of people who marry and have children end up growing old alone and in a horrible nursing home. Most of the people who sit in nursing homes with little or no visitation from family had children. And as far as being alone, there are these wonderful people called... friends. And when your friend gets mad at you and decides not to deal with you any more (or you decide not to deal with your friend anymore), you don't have to lose your home and pay that friend money.

Have any of you endured this line of questioning? How have you handled it?

Previously:

Practical Advice For Men Avoiding Marriage

How Do You Decide if You Want Kids?

Avoidance and Being Caught

My wife, who has told me before that although she tries not to show it, claims she is really flattered and encouraged when I make a big deal about her appearing nude before me. Yet she seems to have no interest in basking in my mesmerized stare of awe.

I want to be desired, admired, appreciated for my physical appearance. It seems like she should couldn't care less about being the focus of such passion.

I'm very sensitive to not being wanted, and I've told her so. I told her I'm more perceptive than she might think when it comes to that.

Recently, my tentative indications of interest in making love were met with her asking to defer to our regular weekly session.

Okay, fine. As long as she will allow me my privacy, I will tend to my health myself.

But then the appointed date came, and she deferred again to the next day.

You Did NOT Enjoy What You Chose to Do For Ten Years

Had to check in about a call during the first hour of Dr. Laura's show on Tuesday, September 17, 2013. Whenever I have a bone to pick with Dr. Laura, I point out that I listen to every minute of her show and I follow what goes on with her website and Facebook page, and I read her books. I think she usually hits the bullseye and I think she has done so much good for many people, me included. Blah, blah, blah...

Dr. Laura's advice and comments over the years have made it clear that she, like many other people, subscribes to the idea that men should have to buy sex one way or another, preferably by signing a contract that shifts over half of everything they’ll ever earn to a woman. That is not how she would put it, but it is the end result of what she says (including that men always pay for dates) and the use of phrases like calling women who shack up or otherwise regularly fornicate as “unpaid whores”.

She took a call from a woman who'd not been honest with her husband about her sexual past (as the husband had supposedly been with her) in that she had previously not disclosed to him that from her late 20s to her late 30s, she'd had a lot of one night stands as part of evenings stated off by clubbing. The caller said the encounters had been fun, at least for a few minutes each time. Dr. Laura denied they had been fun. Isn't it interesting how Dr. Laura can speak to whether something was fun for another person and tell that person they didn't have the feelings they did?