Welcome to the UK's first Fertility Show. The two-day event, which took place at the weekend, has been described as an "Ideal Home Exhibition for making babies" and will run annually at Olympia in west London for the next three years. Organised in association with Infertility Network UK (a charity that offers advice and information to people with infertility problems), there is a dizzying array of exhibitors; over 40 IVF specialists, clinics offering on-the-spot fertility tests and information on egg freezing, sperm banks, nutritionists, acupuncturists and the latest advice on donor conception.

Think wedding - or career - fair. A conference center, tables, "information." Brochures. Cards. The occasional freebie. Except the attendees are stressed out and anxious. And as the Guardian describes the fertility fair, it's a mix of actual respected specialists and "experimental" techniques that such a vulnerable population might be especially vulnerable to. To wit: "Positioned behind a reassuringly sensible looking stand run by Chelsea & Westminster Assisted Conception Unit is a business that calls itself "Fertility Astrology", which claims to be able to assess the quality of your eggs by mapping your stars." Nearby, though, there's an informative lecture by a specialist whom most of these people would normally not have access to.

The divorce fair is a similar mix. Actually, it's for "Divorce, Separation and Bereavement." Says Reuters, "There were workshops on "How to bounce back," "How to love yourself in order to bounce back," or, more prosaically, "The role of plastic surgery in reconquering one's self-image." Financial advice and experts on single-parenting are found next to the "School of Seduction." Oh, and if you're not quite there yet, "singletons or soon-to-be singletons could also hire the services of a private detective agency to uncover evidence of infidelity or hidden financial assets." I'm sure seeing that doesn't trigger anything negative for those trying to bounce back! Or, perhaps, it bounces them right into the plastic surgery booth?

What events like both of these do seem to provide is solidarity. Says one attendee at the Fertility Fair, "At least here you feel you're not alone; the only one going through this." And that surely goes double for the Divorce Fair - indeed, it's shocking that some enterprising dating service hasn't set up shop by the entrance. Neither article really gets into the success rates of such events, however one quantifies that - but surely, as much as anything, anyone attending, whether they come away with a helpful card or no, feels that they have taken matters into their hands and "done something" - which can be as important as anything. And there's always that to be said for making the essentially private overwhelmingly, openly public?

Bounce Back In Style At Paris Divorce Fair [Reuters]
Welcome To The Fertility Show [Guardian]

In an interview last week on Entertainment Tonight, Jon insisted that his decision to halt production of Kate Plus 8 was not about money, saying, "My kids are more important to me than your dollars." However, since then, he has reportedly emptied $230,000 from his family's joint bank account, money that was set aside for paying the household bills.


This morning, a visibly shaken Kate was on Today, giving very specific details about the family's finances, and telling Meredith Vieira that she was left with only $1,000, and can not pay her bills. (Jon and his lawyers have released a statement to Entertainment Tonight, sort of denying her claims.)


On Friday, Jon was a guest on The Insider—which has a new View-ish panel setup—and said that 80% of the money he and his family have earned has been put into a trust for his children. However, he said that the trust is "revocable," meaning that he has access to the money in it. He admitted that he "absolutely" plans on dipping into this trust.


In a phone interview on The View today, Kate said that she would work at McDonald's, if need be, to support her children, but would obviously prefer the larger paychecks from TLC.


Jon, who has been claiming that he wants his children off the show because the lack of privacy is "harmful" to them, disclosed on The Insider the last time he had sexual intercourse with Kate.


He then lied, over and over and over again about various rumors. (Please, he's never smoked a joint in his life? Didn't he live in a Hawaii for a while?)


After denying scandal after scandal, Jon apologized to people for his "mistakes." He also said he believes he will survive this particular one.


But will he survive Nancy Grace? Jon will be facing off with her tonight on The Insider.


Oh, and Hailey weighs in, via Twitter, if anyone cares.


BREAKING NEWS: Kate Gosselin Files Motions To Get $230k Back From Jon [Radar]

I know of several couples who, after amicable breakups, met for lunch and agreed that when they got back to the office, they both would simultaneously change their relationship status from "In a Relationship" to "Single" in one, smooth, sane move, and devote the rest of the afternoon to explaining to curious friends that they were just ready to move on. But in a Salon piece today on the way Facebook is affecting the lives of those going through divorces — and their lawyers — makes that kind of levelheadedness seem rare, at least among an older, less savvy generation.

It seems that every social networking feature that helps keep us connected can also be an irresistible temptation for those who feel wronged by their former spouses. The piece centers on Lauren (fake name), a mother of two who took to Facebook to air her dirty laundry and diss her ex:

"During the month that followed, as the marriage continued to unravel and her grief intensified, Lauren began chronicling her divorce via status updates. "Lauren would cry, but then he wins," she wrote. "There isn't enough Kleenex in the world." "My house is a mess. My life is a mess." "Lauren is facing the aftermath.""

And forget about trying to sneak in status updates aimed directly at your ex's hopefully-jealous heart (and everyone knows when someone's doing that anyway!):

"When she began to write about her new relationship, her husband finally lost it. "I wrote that I was ‘Going to pizza night and beyond,'" Lauren said, "and he was offended by it. I thought it was vague enough.""

Then Lauren expanded her multi-platform revenge empire to the photo-tagging feature:

"Lauren, for example, "tagged" her ex-husband in a photo of their two boys and a coral snake — she gave the snake her husband's name."

Okay, that one is just plain funny. But in their attempts to express their frustration in an increasingly isolated world, some divorcees are accidentally getting creepy:

"Chad Post was expunged by his wife after he posted about chopping down trees in preparation to sell their house. "I wrote that I was probably not in the best mental state to be using a chain saw," he told me. "My wife didn't say anything, but then she defriended me. She just wasn't there anymore. It was super-surreal in a 21st century-meets-third grade sort of way.""

And as if looking nutty to your friends (and high school rivals, and former Sunday School teacher, etc) and sacrificing a bit of your self-respect forever, revealing too much about your post-breakup life on Facebook can have real legal consequences as well, like the possibility of losing custody if your pictures show you drinking or smoking (!), or this kind of thing (which sounds quite far-fetched):

"If, for instance, photos surface online of you and your new paramour toasting each other at a pricey restaurant, you could be found to have committed "marital waste" (spending marital funds on another person)."

Apparently all of this is so common that it's now a just a regular formality in the family law industry:

"Many lawyers, in fact, advise clients not to get on Facebook, MySpace or Twitter at all during a divorce, and some firms require that clients suspend their accounts."

Good plan! The lesson here is not a new one: always remember that nothing you put online can ever be taken back, and that nobody, but nobody, has ever won a breakup or divorce by being less than graceful about it, even before social networking. The article advises regular people to act like celebrities (or, I'd add: pre-Twitter celebrities) and keep your insecure, spiteful, and vulnerable quips close to the vest, no matter how cathartic you think it'll feel to broadcast them. I'd add something to that as well: why not just not answer the relationship part of your Facebook profile? After all, unless you keep your Facebook page as a dating tool, it's really nobody's business, and you can avoid some serious heartache later. Think of it as a social networking pre-nup: reveal nothing, and later have nothing to take back.

The Facebook Divorce [Salon]

According to David Allison, the head of Resolution, a UK group comprised of 5,700 lawyers, "There's been a tenfold increase in 'pre-nups'. I'm doing considerably more now than I have ever done before and that experience is mirrored around the rest of the country. People are doing it because they want to be able to sort this stuff out now rather than later on."

Lawyers argue that high profile celebrity divorces, such as the divorce of Paul McCartney and Heather Mills, which cost McCartney roughly 30 million pounds, have contributed to the rise in prenups as they have allowed couples to view the financial and emotional toll of a messy divorce on a large scale. Though most people don't have McCartney's money, the lack of a prenup in his divorce still serves as a reminder that when things can get very ugly if a couple splits without a plan of sorts in place.

Though I personally have no plans to sign a prenup (mostly due to the fact that I don't think anyone is going to fight me for possession of my very chic 8th grade wardrobe or collection of Ramona Quimby books), I can see the benefits behind one, as cold and unromantic as it may be. Marriage is a contractual agreement on many levels, and with half of all marriages ending in divorce, protection set up to avoid a nasty, drawn out divorce battle might be worthwhile. The romantic in me hates them and finds them dreadful and tacky, but the realist in me can understand why many people feel the need to sign them.

So what say you, commenters? Are prenups necessary in a time when half of all marriages fail? Can you still be romantic while being practical? Or are prenups total romance killers?

More Couples Signing Pre-Nuptials [BBC]
Lamar Wants Prenup—But There's A Problem [TMZ]
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The Good Wife, which premiers tonight, follows political wife Alicia Florrick (Margulies) as she rebounds from her husband's sex scandal. He's a state's attorney turned jailbird, and she goes from stay-at-home mom to lawyer with the help of an old friend from law school. Soon she takes on a murder case and, "baggage" aside, begins to "hunt for hair samples and missing security-camera tapes" with the best of them.

Back in real life, political wife Jenny Sanford will publish her book in May 2010. Her publisher says the memoir "will grapple with the universal issue of maintaining integrity and a sense of self during life's difficult times." Maintaining integrity may be a universal issue — but unlike Jenny Sanford (who is currently separated from her husband),many divorced women need to find a way of maintaining food on the table as well. And not all of them bounce back into the workforce as easily as Alicia Florrick.

Dana Goldstein tackles this issue in the American Prospect. She writes,

But what happens to the real-life Alicia Florricks — the women who attempt to claw back to the top after years or even decades at home with the kids? For one thing, their income suffers: A woman can expect her salary to drop by 2 percent for each year she stays home from work. That means a woman who earned $80,000 10 years ago, then quit her job, can expect her new salary to be $64,000.

Goldstein also cites Leslie Bennetts, of Feminine Mistake fame, who tells this cautionary tale about the perils of looking for work after a long time at home:

One high-powered woman had opted out of her career for a short time but started trying to get back in when her husband left her for a younger woman. Despite years of effort, she has never succeeded. She finally found a teaching job that pays one-eighth of what she was earning 20 years ago. Her ex-husband has long failed to pay the child support he owes her, a six-figure sum she is now trying to chase down with expensive legal help. She has a lot of company; nearly 70 percent of child-support cases in this country have arrears owed to the custodial parents, who are overwhelmingly female-one of several reasons why men's standard of living rises after divorce while that of women and children typically plummets.

Of course, divorce isn't the only factor now facing stay-at-home moms. As Steven Greenhouse of the Times wrote on Saturday, the recession is imperiling men's jobs and forcing more women to look for work — not always with great results. Bennetts calls the Times story a "feeble attempt at catch-up," given the newspaper's much-criticized coverage of the so-called "opt-out revolution" six years ago. She writes,

For the major media that romanticized opting out as the soothing solution to the stress of juggling work and family, the devastation that choice has left in its wake represents merely another story. But for the women who got sold a bill of goods and gambled their futures without understanding the risks they were taking, losing that bet turned out to be the biggest mistake of their lives. Those who encouraged them to do so have a lot to answer for.

There's no doubt that some women in America have lost out by opting out. And while the original Times piece could have included a little more criticism and a little less trend-spotting, the real enemy of moms both divorced and married is an economic system that forces people to choose between work and child care, and then penalizes those who have ever chosen the latter. But if the recession is indeed forcing women back to work, maybe this will change.

Like the fictional Alicia Florrick, the real Trudi Foutts Loh found a job through a law school friend after years as a stay-at-home mom. She's one of the lucky ones — but she has friends too, and maybe the recession will create a network of moms to rival the old boys. And maybe these moms will have a better understanding of how to allow their employees to have family lives, and how to use the skills of people who have been out of the office for a while. Of course, this is a long way off — but everyone from CBS to the Times is talking about women "opting back in." And if the media can influence us for ill, as Bennetts says, maybe it can also influence us for good.

The Wrong Side Of The Mommy Track [American Prospect]
Recession Drives Women Back To The Work Force [NYT]
Wife Of Scandal-Plagued S.C. Governor Plans Memoir [Reuters]
'Wife' To 'Cougar,' These Are Women To Watch [Washington Post]
Good Wife [NYT]
The Downside Of Opting Out [Daily Beast]

Amanda is educated by her mother, who has primary custody. When her father suggested that her mother's "rigid" Christian curriculum was harming his daughter, the courts intervened, agreed with the dad, and ordered that the child begin 5th grade at the local school. After reviewing the findings of the Guardian ad Litem, Family Court Justice Lucinda V. Sandler conceded that while "the evidence support a finding that Amanda is generally likeable and well liked, social and interactive with her peers, academically promising, and intellectually at or superior to grade level," the court was troubled by her "rigidity on faith" and felt that her "vigorous defense of her religious beliefs ... suggests strongly that she has not had the opportunity to seriously consider any other point of view." (You can read the decision here.) As a result, Sandler concluded that Amanda "would be best served by exposure to different points of view at a time in her life when she must begin to critically evaluate multiple systems of belief and behavior and cooperation in order to select, as a young adult, which of those systems will best suit her own needs."

Not shockingly, many Christian groups are up-in-arms at what they see as a straightforward, unconstitutional attack on their faith, and court-fearin' Conservatives haven't been far behind. If you do a search on the case, probably 90% of coverage is on Christian sites and blogs, which reference the specter of the schools' secular war on religion and the unfair witch-hunt on a decent Christian mother. Says Douglas Napier, senior ADF counsel, to the Washington Times, "Does anybody seriously believe a public school will broaden this girl's views on comparative religious thought? The schools are the number-one censors of religious thought." The mom's lawyers, of the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal outfit, have filed a motion asking the court to reconsider. Says her lawyer, "The court has intruded on the child's most fundamental liberties and should reconsider this unconstitutional encroachment." As in the case of Rifqa Bary, it's been spun as a case of old-fashioned Christian martyrdom.

And as in the case of Bary, it's hard to regard the case objectively anymore, because it's quickly been shanghai'd by ideology-speak and . But the excellent New Hampshire Family Law Blog laid it out in a highly convincing fashion. In essence, they ask: Is this about parental rights - or constitutional law? New Hampshire state law mandates the judge must find some evidence of harm to a child before taking her out of home-schooling. The court awarded her mom custody, she's presumably meeting the state education standards, and by the judge's admission, the child is socialized (she takes a number of supplementary classes, as well as sports and dance) and educated. It's dismaying to hear a child parrot back beliefs of any kind, but can we legally change that? Surely what Amanda is learning is no different from what she'd be taught at a Christian private school, after all. If she is, say, learning exclusively creationism to the exclusion of Evolution, yes, that's certainly a legal issue - but is that the case? And while I'm sure I'd find plenty of Amanda's views questionable - the certainty of the home-schooled Christian kids in Jesus Camp springs to mind - you can't punish parents for stupid views, surely? This would undermine a large percentage of home-schooling parents, many of whom teach a similar Christian curriculum.

But from the father's perspective, I can imagine the dismay at seeing a child indoctrinated with rigid views that aren't your own - and if it's a legal question of both parents needing to approve a religious curriculum, then, yes, obviously he needs a say. Conceding that both parents should have a say is not a question of Secular Schools Who Hate Christianity Witch-Hunting. And while it's a bit surreal to see the Christian advocates righteously invoking the rights of single mothers ("A lot of single moms are concerned about this case because their ex-husbands could use the home-schooling issue to get back at them as has happened in this case," says one) it doesn't seem like, at the end of the day, anyone can escape from the basic issue that both parents have a say.

New Hampshire Court's Decision Regarding Home Schooling Grabs National Attention [New Hampshire Family law Blog]
Christian Girls, Interrupted [Wall Street Journal]

Home-Schooler Ordered To Attend Public School [Washington Times]

As Home Schooling Surges, The Evangelical Share Drops [US News]
Homeschooled Girl Ordered To Attend Public School Over Her 'Rigid' Faith [Christian Post]
State of New Hampshire, Motion [Telladf]

In her essay on Double X, author Sarah Bliston says, "like many American businesses, chick-lit must reinvent itself - fast - if it's going to survive." And in a way it's doing so. In a slightly annoying article ("contrition is the new black") for the Times, Ruth La Ferla describes new books like The Penny Pinchers Club, in which a woman resorts to dumpster-diving when she fears her husband is about to divorce her, and The Summer Kitchen, whose heroine goes back to work after her husband's arrest. And in Publisher's Weekly, Doree Shafrir mentions Mercury in Retrograde, which features a character forced to fend for herself after a lifetime of relying on her parents.

On the one hand, these books would seem to champion a new self-reliance not present in more traditional, catch-the-man novels. Shafrir quotes Greer Hendricks, editor of Mercury in Retrograde, who says,

These women were really getting a life. It's really about friendship and self-acceptance and getting your act together. It's about the life, not the guy.

These tales of women overcoming obstacles to live independently of men and their bank accounts certainly sound inspiring — except that the obstacles aren't really that big. In fact, it seems that divorce and financial devastation usually cause the heroines to do something fun and hip that they really wanted to do anyway. When her parents take away her credit cards, Mercury in Retrograde's Lena "Lipstick" Lippencrass "discovers a talent for fashion design" — that noted path to financial security. The heroine of The Summer Kitchen is "forced to open a bakery," also usually a capital-intensive and uncertain enterprise, at least in the real world. And Jill Kargman's The Ex-Mrs. Hedgefund, has its heroine, post-divorce, "picking up the threads of a career built on her first love, rock 'n' roll." These women don't have to scrimp and save in menial jobs — instead, they embark on glamorous careers, with the implication that their lives are now more fulfilling than they were in the days of easy marital money.

This idea of salvation through reduced circumstances — the concept that having less disposable income will help us focus on what's really important and perhaps even become better people — has been around since at least the beginning of the recession, and probably long before. But the key word is disposable. Describing the post-recession edits she made to her book Sleepless Nights, Bliston says,

Whereas before, if I'm going to be completely honest, my characters' motivations to change were somewhat murky and self-centered, now they have a splash of excitement and energy about them. Somehow, the changes I'd made to try to keep up with the changing economy had actually made the novel better.

And author Sarah Strohmeyer tells the Times about curbing her own overspending. "I mean," she says, "how many more napkin rings can you buy?" The new, recession-era chick lit may tell the stories of women who pare away the fat in their lives to find true happiness, but this is a lot easier if there's some fat to begin with. Broadsheet's Amy Benfer writes that the heroines' newer, leaner lives still "reflect the kinds of decisions that those of us who spent the boom years wondering if we could ever afford a mortgage on an average professional salary before our 65th birthdays might still find a bit out of touch with reality." After all, "one can lose the home in Aspen and the five-tiered cakes and still be a good long way from foreclosure on one's primary residence and clipping coupons for Kraft macaroni and cheese."

And while "losing a home in Aspen" might indeed force someone to focus on what's truly valuable in life, getting laid off and losing health insurance don't usually give people "a splash of excitement and energy." For women outside the hedge fund set, especially those who've been out of the workforce for a while, divorce can mean a plunge into poverty, not a launch into a new and exciting career. Benfer writes that chick lit about wealthy women might "appeal to the aspirational fantasies" of readers (that word again), and that these fantasies may have helped get us into this financial mess in the first place. And Amy Sohn, author of the new novel Prospect Park West, says, "The book is really about the perils of aspiration," and of a life that is "always about the next thing, trading up." Not every woman is able to trade up, but chick lit may be, in part, about wanting to, and this may not be such a good thing.

The chick lit genre doesn't deserve across-the-board opprobrium — at their best, these novels can be witty and wise, and their popularity supports many a female writer. But chick lit writers may be unconsciously buying into women's magazine culture, with its idea that reading should inspire desire — for more stuff, or, in the new, recession-era formulation, for a life that is glamorous even in fallback mode. It's neither realistic nor necessary to ask that writers produce only what Benfer calls "Great and Difficult works of art," or that all chick lit novels be about unmitigated pain and suffering. But, as author Gigi Levangie Grazer says, "the idea that having the right bag buys you happiness-now that's dark." And there's something dark, too, about the notion that even in a recession, heroines need to be better off than their readers. Do chick lit consumers want to read about working-class families dealing with layoffs, or women who find fulfillment in jobs that aren't traditionally "cool"? We don't know, because those books aren't being written — yet.

More Gumption, Less Gucci [New York Times]
Chick-literati [Financial Times]
Women's Lit: Chick Lit Gets An Update [Publishers Weekly]
The Death Of Chick Lit [Double X]
The Devil Wears Old Navy [Broadsheet]

As Tara Parker-Pope writes in today's Times,

New research shows that when married people become single again, whether by divorce or a spouse's death, they experience much more than an emotional loss. Often they suffer a decline in physical health from which they never fully recover, even if they remarry.

The stats, which come from a nationwide study of folks in their 50s and 60 and a series of related experiments, detailed in the piece, suggest that the stress of such situations can actually affect a person's cellular level and immune system.

When the author asked for anecdotal responses from readers, she got a range. Wrote "Shelley,"

Duh. Major emotional trauma damages health. Losing a spouse, losing a parent, losing a child, losing a job (and related health insurance.) I can't believe with health care in the state it is, we're wasting money on this kind of research.

But others had a more pragmatic take: Says "Jack", "At first the divorce took a toll, but the prospect of dating made me get in better physical shape. I joined a local running group, got in shape, and made new friends!" And added "S.K.," "Considering what the stress of a bad marriage is doing to my health, I'll take my chances with divorce." But the last word should probably go to the unhelpful contributor who commented only, "Marriage sucks and then you die!"

Divorce and death are major stresses (The Onion's editorial, "The Divorce Was Unfortunate, But I'm Glad We Handled It Like Total Animals" is all-too-real for many to be funny) and it seems pretty difficult to emerge from either situation unscathed. But isn't it one of the disconnects of being a human being that our physical interests are often in direct opposition of the wants and needs of our brains? In short, the body, for all its sophistication, doesn't want us to live life too richly: if it had its way, we'd subsist on a minimally caloric diet of nuts, seeds, lean protein and water, spend no time sitting at a computer, and start reproducing in childhood. The best most of us can hope for is an uneasy detante in which our emotions act as unreliable double-agent. (And can you guess who has two thumbs and took Biology for poets?) I guess my point is just this: sometimes the glut of information about the unavoidable effects of living on the body can be disheartening, and make one feel like we're in the grip of forces so large there's no point to anything. To a degree, that's true, and a certain measure of contentment probably arises from surrendering a bit of control. But to quote a doctor quoted in Laurie Colwin's peerless essay "Red Peppers," "it's silly to do anything for reasons of health." And applying any such thoughts to the emotional maelstrom of loss and divorce - quite stressful enough, thanks, without considering the toll it's taking on your cell count - seems like a good place to apply the maxim.

Divorce, It Seems, Can Make You Ill [NY Times]

When Married People Become Single Again [NY Times]

The Divorce Was Unfortunate, But I'm Glad We Handled It Like Total Animals [The Onion]

• You can also buy a book that allows you to put your dick in a hole, if you have one, since some men have the need to make everything about their dicks. • The Wall Street Journal investigates the pink taxi service launched in Beirut in March, which provides a safe mode of transportation for women. Many Muslim women, who are barred from riding in cars with men other than their husbands or relatives, find the service especially helpful. • Mazen Abdul Jawad was arrested in Saudi Arabia earlier this month for bragging about his sex life on the Lebanese television show "Red Lines." He reportedly discussed his enjoyment of sex and how he lost his virginity at age 14. According to a Saudi daily newspaper, Abdul Jawad has issued a public apology about his behavior. • Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the FDIC, on her side career as a writer: "I discovered children's picture books when I had children and began reading to them. I loved the combination of the written word and a visual depiction... That gave me the idea to write children's books that would educate children about finance. I thought it could be a powerful way to convey information to children, and that parents would pick it up, too." • Nearly 71 percent of cats live in multiple cat households, so there are a lot of people unhappy with the "crazy cat lady" moniker. • Chief justice Abdul-Raoul Halabi of Gaza said on Monday that he plans on instituting a ban on female lawyers who do not dress in accordance with Islamic law when the court returns from summer recess in September. Women will be required to wear a headscarf and a long, dark colored cloak in order to appear in court. • The Hindustan Times reports on the sad truth of child marriages in India. Despite the 2006 Prohibition of Child Marriages Act, almost every child in the village of Kachoulia is "married," usually to a much older husband. • An Amnesty International report shows that the recent full ban on abortion in Nicaragua is causing women and girls to kill themselves, be deprived of treatment for cancer and AIDS and carry unwanted children to term — even their own half-siblings. The government and Catholic Church continues not to care. • According to a recent study released by the nonprofit Catalyst, 75% of women of color working in U.S. law firms are likely to leave their jobs within the next five years because of job dissatisfaction that results from the the unique barriers minority groups face. The Chicago Sun Times put it a slightly different way: "75% bail within 5 years due to barriers." • Crazy Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann thinks that Obama's health reform plans are just an effort to make us more like Cuba. Yes, Michelle Bachmann thinks: she doesn't do so with any insight or logic. • Crazy Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe's spokesman says "His focus is on issues" rather than the comments he made legitimizing the Obama birther nonsense. • White American Congressman Thaddeus McCotter wants to get Congress to make the President apologize to the white cop that arrested Henry Louis Gates inside his Harvard home. Earlier this year, Congress apologized for slavery 146 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. • A baby bit Al Franken and there's a picture. • Researchers from the University of Chicago and John Hopkins University found that divorce and widowhood have a lasting detrimental impact on health. This may be due in part to increased stress over shared child care, and the decreased income of a single-parent household. •

Of course, everyone knows that Moakler's divorce party was a bit of a joke, as Moakler and Barker have since reconciled and split about 8 bazillion times (and are reportedly currently together). But Moakler is not the only one who chose to celebrate the demise of her marriage with a shindig: as Ruby Warrington reports in today's Times of London, "Divorce parties are becoming big news, and range in style from discreet intimate gatherings to hen-style nights of hell-raising."

Warrington explores the growing divorce party industry, which is already cruising at top tacky speeds: with such craptacular divorce party paraphernalia as "wedding-ring coffins, Just Divorced L-plates, "stressticles" (stress balls shaped like, yep, you guessed it...) and plastic ball-and-chains." In short, the Divorce Party is just like the Bachelorette Party, only flipped.

Divorce parties range from intimate gatherings with close friends to celebratory vacations to "separation celebrations" wherein the unhappy couple chooses to say goodbye to their relationship in a celebratory manner, surrounded by family and friends. "The life you create as a couple is also about your friends and community," life coach Larah Davis tells Warrington, "I wanted to be upfront about everything, so people wouldn't feel as if they had to walk on eggshells around us. You need people answering your calls at a time like this. And we still had a business to run, so it was vital we were able to move on with integrity."

That's all well and good, I suppose, but isn't it a bit awkward for your family and friends to invite them to a party celebrating your divorce? It just seems a bit...off for some reason. What if your family is really upset about the separation? What if your friends feel like they are being forced to "celebrate" an occasion that bums them out quite a bit? Understandably, your divorce is incredibly personal and if one feels that they are in a place to say, "Hey, we're both happy, this didn't work, let's all just move on," that's one thing, but it seems that in all of the celebration, the underlying reality that this is a partnership that has failed is sort of tossed about as "Eh, oh well," which is a bit sad, if you think about it.

Then again, if one leaves a really terrible relationship, it stands to reason that one would want to celebrate her new found freedom, and so I suppose the whole divorce party phenomenon makes a bit of sense in that respect. And it also makes sense that people wouldn't want the "Oh, no, divorce!" cloud hanging over their heads every time they speak to loved ones, and a celebration, a means to say, "Hey, I'm alright, things are going to be okay," can help to brush that cloud away. Everyone grieves in different ways, everyone celebrates in different ways. And I suppose for many people, the easiest way to move on is to try to combine the two, saying goodbye to the past with goofy cakes and party favors all while knowing, deep down, that once the farewell party ends, the future begins.

Divorce Parties Are Helping Beat Break-Up Blues [TimesOnline]

[Image via CelebSource]

Jon is a 32 year old father of eight going through a midlife crisis, which means that he drives around in a sportscar built for two and dates college-aged women. Sure, Kate may have been a bossy nag, but that's only because she was married to a child.

In last night's episode, the couple got some company called Kids Crooked House to design and build their kids a set of freebie crooked houses... playhouse structures that look crooked on the outside, but are structurally sound on the inside. Ironic, I know.

For now, it looks like the show will go on. Jon and Kate explained that they will film their time with the children separately for the remaining episodes of the fifth season. It seems like the kids are the most professional out of the whole family.






Kate Gosselin on Divorce: 'Jon Left Me No Choice' [People]
Earlier: Media In A Tither Over (Definitely Divorcing) Jon & Kate

• Bad news cat people: psychologists have found that, unlike dogs, cats are unable to understand cause-and-effect connections between objects. • According to recent data, unintended births are on the rise in Nigeria. Researchers say that this is partially due to the failure of the government to implement sexual and reproductive health services successfully. • Divorce has become even more complicated in the age of Facebook. Lawyers report using information gained from their client's spouse's Facebook pages frequently in court, often to prove infidelity or other wrong doing. • Want to get ahead at work? Learn to behave like a tall person. Adrianne Cohen, author of The Tall Book schools workers on how to act tall, and be totally awkward and unlikable in the process! • Imelda Marcos, she of the famous shoe collection, may soon be reunited with her jewelry. Her collection is worth more than $310 m and includes a ruby said to be as big as a prune. • A research group from the UK found that among cancers that affect both genders, men are 60% more likely to be diagnosed with the disease and 70% more likely to die from it. This may be due in part to the fact that women tend to take better care of themselves, while men react with a stiff upper lip when faced with physical symptoms. • Federal health regulators announced today that Zicam Cold Remedy nasal gel, and other products containing zinc, should no longer be used to treat congestion, since they can permanently damage one's ability to smell. • This Saturday, filmmaker Cyrus Nowrasteh's film The Stoning of Soraya M. will premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival. The New York Times art blog has the trailer, and it looks fascinating. • 

First, of course, there's the wedding! Romance, wedding magazines, dress-shopping - why, look! The Wall Street Journal has a June-ready story on it! Oh. "Pre-Altared: More Used Wedding Gowns Go Back on Market." Apparently "the combined forces of the Web and the recession" are compelling a lot of women to sell their old dresses online. Obviously an expedient choice for the unsentimental or the space or cash-strapped, the success of the frankly-named PreOwnedWeddingDresses.com shows that in the new era of Modern Love, you can get your old/new/borrowed (and probably, blue) with minimal muss and fuss. And any sacrifice in sentiment is more than matched by the all-American pragmatism of the exchange.

Ms. Bulow found a dress online, tried on the $1,200 style at a bridal shop, then bought the dress for $450 from a young woman in Alabama whose wedding had been called off. "It's the way the free-market system should work," Ms. Bulow says. "She had something I wanted."

But not everyone's pinching pennies! Some people seem to still be splashing out on Fairy-Tale weddings that are all about love and romance! Oh, wait. "Forget saucepans, the modern bride is sparking controversy by demanding flashy gadgets and plasma TVs," says the Independent's "Wedding lists - self-indulgent or sensible?" It seems insolent newlyweds have no qualms about letting their loved ones upgrade them to the latest Gizmodo has to offer. Forget necessities; in the age of cohabitation and grown-up marriage, people have already got those. But you can get them nicer ones! "It seems the norm today for newlyweds to saunter from the altar into a home fully furnished with mod cons and designer furniture - all charitably paid for by their guests."

But now that you're married - either pragmatically or acquisitively - wedded bliss! Oh, wait. Here's the NY Times on "When Sex Leaves the Marriage."

It's estimated that about 15 percent of married couples have not had sex with their spouse in the last six months to one year, according to Denise A. Donnelly, associate professor of sociology at Georgia State University, who has studied sexless marriage.

Okay, that's worst-case scenario - Donnelly says that on average, couples make whooppee about 58 times per annum - but once the sex is gone? It's all downhill. Reanimating a stagnant sex life is "very hard" due to the many issues of communication, confidence, hurt and trust involved and, while it can be resuscitated, "people in sexless marriages were more likely to have considered divorce than those in sexually active marriages."

Well, those people are in luck, because as the Times of London story "With this website I thee divorce" tells us, online divorce sites are proliferating! Offering legal advice and resources, discussion forums, expert guidance and support, these sites may be teh wave of the future, cutting through some of the messiness of the inevitably painful process.

While online chats about divorce and marriage troubles are multiplying on sites such as mumsnet and iVillage, (as well as ) specialist sites ... appear to be proof that divorcing couples are increasingly seeking friendship and advice anonymously and online through chat rooms and the blogosphere.

And we know from web support in these parts! Or, as one site-user says, "The doctor has given me support but the web community has given me great emotional support, too. You either laugh or cry - but just to talk to someone who has also been married to an alcoholic and gone in search of bottles in the toilet is a big relief."

We'll be in the corner, weeping into our pile of invitations. And, no joke, "Pachelbel Canon" is actually playing on my LastFM "Antonio Vivaldi" radio. Also: who knew that "weeping bride" was a popular position in certain girl-on-girl porn genres? I wish I didn't!

Pre-Altared: More Used Wedding Gowns Go Back On Market [Wall Street Journal]
Wedding Lists - Self-Indulgent Or Sensible?[Independent]

When Sex Leaves The Marriage [NY Times]
With This Website I Thee Divorce [TimesUK]

"Everyone asks, ‘Wasn't it weird?'" Georgi says, "It really wasn't because he was very young at heart. So, he was very hard for me to keep up with … When you climb on your own jet for the 10th time and everything in four days - Europe was crazy - and we were in each place for a day and a half. It was a bit too fast-paced for me." [ThePittsburghChannel] via [Neatorama]

Such marriages are not uncommon: in poor and remote areas such as these, up to 30% of couples are married by a mullah and don't bother registering - a formality that fell by the wayside during the civil war of the 1990s, when many parents wanted to afford young daughters the relative security of marriage and the civil government was barely functioning. But it's only recently that husbands have started taking advantage of it, many leaving to find work in Russia, getting equally unofficial "talaaqs" or religious divorces so they can remarry and gain legal status, and leaving their wives high and dry. As Zebo Davlatova, of the League of Women Lawyers, tells the BBC, "Without official registration women have no right to demand their husbands provide them with somewhere to live or to pay anything at all to support the children," and often end up in other unrecognized marriages for security - as second or third wives. This is not unique to Tajikistan - there are thousands of such cases - and a problem for which, as women's advocates say, there's simply no easy answer.

The Muslimah Media Watch addressed the story today, and while they acknowledge the real tragedy of such situations, ask that we not view this as simply another tale of woe pertaining to women who are victims of a patriarchal Muslim culture - "the Orientalist theme of the weak, emasculated Muslim society that abuses women" - and points out that it's important to remember that "the real problem isn't the nikaah or talaaq, but the fact that neither of these are documented." Obviously it's larger cultural perceptions of women, and the dependent and vulnerable role they're forced into, that permits this sort of tragedy - but as MMW is at pains to point out, it's important not to conflate this with Islam as a whole. What is depressing to conceive of is the fact that thousands of men have been able to abandon their families so callously, and far more of a comment on human nature than anything else. It's not as if, after all, they don't know what they are leaving them to. Says Marhaba, "He registered his marriage with that other woman and I hear they live happily and in prosperity. But look at this shack me and the children have to live in now. They can't even go to school, because I can't afford it and they don't have birth certificates."

Legal limbo for Tajik Islamic brides [BBC]
Always an Unregistered Wife, Never a Bride [Muslimah Media Watch]

The couple have been married for 19 years, but Berlusconi's tendency to flirt with younger women has finally convinced Lario to leave: "I was forced to take this step," Lario says. Berlusconi has already issued a response: "It's a personal issue that pains me, that is in the private sphere, and which seems necessary not to speak about." Good luck with that, Silvio. [AP] [Guardian]

Earlier: Italian Prime Minister's Long-Suffering Wife Issues Smackdown