So Ann Althouse is talking clotheslines now. I remember clotheslines, and I’m not that old.  Mom would send us out to hang up the towels, sheets and (yes) underwear, too.  I’m not sure when she stopped herself, actually, but the door from the laundry room to the side yard was blocked the last time we were back home, so it’s been a while now. I always believe that the reason for the air drying was mostly financial (was the dryer that... Read more

No, I don’t have a link.  It’s in the papers.  The biggest unknown is what city assets will have to be liquidated (zoo?  art in the museum?  Belle Isle?) or whether they’ll be protected in some legal or extra-legal fashion (that is, in the same way as the UAW’s stake in the automakers was protected while senior creditors lost everything). Detroit just doesn’t have much of a way forward.  Fundamental problems with its economy and workforce (reportedly, nearly half of... Read more

in which marital status is a factor in determining benefits, rights, and privileges.” Turns out it was pretty easy to find a summary in Wikipedia of the “Rights and responsibilities of marriages in the United States”.  So this is my plan:  look at this list (copied over directly from the above Wikipedia article), and think about which of these rights and benefits are appropriate for the “any two people”-type marriage and which really only make sense in the context of... Read more

I’m still just playing around with ideas, in an abstract sort of way.  I think I’ll ultimately work my way toward unmarried motherhood and whether there’s anything we can do about it, and kids need a mom and a dad, etc. But I’m not there yet. Let’s consider that there are two types of family relationships:  A and B.  We won’t even name them yet.  Relationship type B involves a man and a woman who have committed to jointly raise... Read more

So here goes: This will probably be a multi-post “series” and I try to work this out.  Here’s the basic starting point:  marriage is fundamentally about children.  Always has been.  Yes, it’s true that the nobility in the middle ages used the pre-existing instution of marriage to force dynastic alliances.  But that doesn’t mean that the purpose of marriage was forming dynastic alliances.  And when I mean “about children” I really mean that marriage was the means to tie men to... Read more

Thanks, Ann, for the mention (quoting from an e-mail I sent over to her)!  — and thanks to everyone who stopped by and left a comment. In her comments, she implicitly asks the question of why I’m having a go at blogging (or, more generally, why anyone ventures into the blogging world).  For quite a while now, I’ve been writing letters to the editor.  Sometimes they get published – mostly they don’t.  (Come to think of it, it’s been a... Read more

Of course, other countries have significantly higher minimum wages, and it would be interesting to read a comprehensive analysis about how that impact their economy.  At any rate, this post (haven’t explored the blog further) is a start. Read more

So a friend of mine linked, on facebook, to this page, McDonald’s suggested budget shows just how impossible it is to get by on minimum wage, which itself links to a website where McDonalds and Visa provide advice on how to develop and live on a budget:  calculate your monthly income, subtract out your monthly bills (e.g., rent, car payments/monthly transit pass, anything that’s a fixed monthly expense), work out how much you have left, and record how much you actually... Read more

Ann Althouse has a conversation — or tries to, at least.  But it’s rather difficult to do when you disagree on the basic facts of the case. If the facts of the case are that Zimmerman attacked Martin, then the conversation we need to have is, in fact, “just because a black teenager wears a hoodie and behaves oddly is no reason to attack him.”  But if the facts of the case are that Martin attacked Zimmerman, then the conversation... Read more