Saturday Night Live/Wash Post/Nature - popping up all over-1/03

Mon Jan 13 13:48:06 EST 2003

subject: Saturday Night Live/Wash Post/Nature - popping up all over-1/03

from: Smart Marriages®

- PREPARING FOR A MARRAIGE, NOT A WEDDING
- SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE:
- WASHINGTON POST - LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
- NATURE: ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF DIVORCE
- SELF-PUBLISHING??
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- PREPARING FOR A MARRAIGE, NOT A WEDDING

Another idea for Marriage Week.  Call your station today! - diane

Dianne, 

We do regular relationships segments on Style, a program on our local
NBC TV affiliate. They are doing a "Planning Your Wedding" promotion and
like the Today Show, viewers choose everything for the wedding.

We suggested that in addition to what they are already doing, they add
segments with the couple on "Planning Your Marriage" as First Things First
is doing in Chattanooga. The producer liked the idea so in February we will
do segments with the chosen couple and will give them dates from our new
book, 10 Great Dates Before You Say "I Do" (out later this month) and talk
about how couples can prepare for marriage while they are planning their
wedding. Just thought this is an idea others on your list might want to
present to their local TV stations. We hope it will raise awareness that the
wedding is just a one-day event, a marriage is for a lifetime and you need
to prepare for it!

Claudia & Dave Arp 
www.marriagealive.com

########################
Marriage is popping up all over the place:

- SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE:

> On "Saturday Night Live's" "Weekend Update", they reported the Shirley Glass
> findings about emotional affairs in the workplace that can damage your
> marriage, though they didn't mention her by name. They didn't criticize the
> findings or make fun of them at all.  They used the facts to then spin off an
> "emotional affair" taking place between the two newscasters.
> It went something like this:
> 
> Tina:  In the news today, according to a new book, emotional affairs
> at the workplace are just as harmful as traditional affairs.
> Jimmy:  Do you believe that Tina?
> Tina (overdramatic, with a pause and gazing lovingly at Jimmy):  With every
> fiber of my body.
> 
> -John Crouch 

####################
- WASHINGTON POST - LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Diane,

Here's a letter to the editor that I wrote in response the Washington
Post Magazine's 11/24 cover story on a "good divorce."  It was published
in the Jan. 12th edition.

Bob Thompson's cover story presents an overly rosy and inaccurate
picture of divorce. Kids are always hurt when their parents divorce, no
matter how friendly the parents are with each other. Further, the damage
children suffer follows them into adulthood, since they lack role models
of stable relationships because of the shattered template of their
parents' marriage.

Children need to be taught that love is a decision, not a feeling, and
that divorce is not the best solution for unhappy or disappointing
marriages.

Bridget Maher
Family Research Council
Washington

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24927-2003Jan7.html

################
- NATURE: ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECTS OF DIVORCE

> Diane, Look at this. Divorce damages not just children but also the
Environment ! - Judy Parejko

>From the web site of the Journal,  Nature
http://www.nature.com/nsu/030106/030106-18.html

Rising household numbers damage hotspots
More homes with fewer occupants are endangering plants and animals.

13 January 2003 
KENDALL POWELL 

Moving back home or getting a divorce affects our impact on other
species, a new study suggests. Human population growth is threatening
animals and plants, but so too is the rising number of households, even
in areas where the population is steady or shrinking.

Throughout the world, the number of generations living under one roof has
declined, and divorce is splitting families into multiple homes. More
households containing fewer people are more damaging to the environment
than simple population growth, warn Jianguo Liu of Michigan State
University in East Lansing and colleagues.

"This may be a wake-up call that everything we do, including personal
freedom and personal choice, may have an impact on the environment," says
Liu, an ecologist who studies the effects of economics on ecosystems.
The abundance of dwellings with just one, two or three occupants can
cause a sharp rise in the use of energy, land, construction materials and
water. For example, both two-person and six-person households typically
have one refrigerator.

Liu's team calculated the population growth, number of households and
average household size for 76 countries with biodiversity hotspots and 65
without. A biodiversity hotspot is a region where large numbers of
species are endangered or threatened by human activity. Many are in the
tropics, but there are also two in the United States - in Indian River
County, Florida, and in the California desert - as well as a habitat for
giant pandas in southwestern China.

The group find that the growth in household numbers globally,
particularly in countries with biodiversity hotspots, has been more rapid
than overall population growth. They calculate that, compared with 1985,
there were 155 million more households in hotspot countries in 2000 as a
result of downsizing and that by 2015 this figure will have risen by 233
million if the trend continues. Even in areas where population is
declining, such as Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain, the number of
households is soaring.

"The more we take from biological systems, the greater the impact on
biodiversity," says Jessica Hellmann, a conservation biologist at the
Centre for Biodiversity Research at the University of British Columbia in
Vancouver. She says measuring human consumption in terms of household
units is a better way of thinking about the global problem.

She would like to see more household analysis done on a smaller - city -
scale to see if the same trend holds true for regions where hotspots and
high human density overlap. San Francisco would be a good example,
Hellmann says. Here, conservation is difficult and expensive, but changes
in household resource use might be easier to implement.

Policy changes such as tax incentives for sharing housing and resources
could help, suggests Liu. Moving back in with Mom and Dad? It would have
to be some tax break.

References
Liu, J., Dally, G. C., Ehrlich, P. R. & Luck, G. W. Effects of household
dynamics on resource consumption and biodiversity. Nature, published
online, (2003). 

###################
- SELF-PUBLISHING??

I've had several requests from Coalition members lately asking what I
know/recommend about self-publishing.  So, I'm putting it to the list.  Have
any of you published your own marriage books?  If so, what was your
experience - good and bad. What advice can you give?  I'll share answers
with the list.  Let me know if you want your remarks to be anonymous. -
diane 

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7th annual Smart Marriages conference/RENO, Nevada
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Diane Sollee, Director
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www.smartmarriages.com
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