It's Monday: Wade Horn stepping down / Horoscopes/honeymoons/Leader Integrity? - 4/2/07

Mon Apr 2 11:21:28 EDT 2007

- WADE HORN STEPPING DOWN
- HOROSCOPES AND HONEYMOONS
- PERSONAL INTEGRITY AND LEADERSHIP?

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- WADE HORN STEPPING DOWN

At first I hoped this was an April Fool's Day joke, but I'm told it's true.
Wade Horn, Assistant Secretary at the Administration for Children and
Families/HHS - and for our purposes a champion of Marriage Education,
visionary leader, and recipient of the 2002 Smart Marriages Impact Award -
is stepping down to take a job in the private sector, effective April 8,
2007.  The private sector just got lucky. - diane

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- HOROSCOPES AND HONEYMOONS

Two items from the UK Marriage News list to try to cheer me up this Monday:

> ·        Love isn't in the stars say scientists
> Turning to their horoscopes for a guide to their fortunes is a daily fix for
> millions says the Daily Mail
> <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=4
> 44821&amp;in_page_id=1770> .  But those looking for love in the stars could be
> putting their faith in a lost cause, say scientists. They claim there is
> little evidence that certain star signs attract while others are likely to
> prove disastrous together.
>  
> A study of millions of married couples shows that the zodiac has no impact on
> our personal relationships, say the researchers. It also exerts no influence
> on our chances of marrying or staying married. Despite their evidence,
> however, astrologists insisted that believers gain much from following the
> stars. 
>  
> The team at the University of Manchester came to its rather unromantic verdict
> after carrying out an exhaustive survey of the birthdays of every married
> couple in England and Wales. Using the 2001 Census, they looked at the 20
> million husbands and wives to see if certain star signs were attracted to
> others. Dr David Voas, from the university's School of Social Sciences, said
> no special compatibility was found between star signs for the ten million
> couples. "If there is even the smallest tendency for Virgos to fancy
> Capricorns, or for Libras to like Leos, then we should see it in the marriage
> statistics," he said. "When you have a population of ten million couples, then
> even if only one pair in 1,000 is influenced by the stars you would have
> 10,000 more couples than expected with certain combinations. There's no such
> evidence though. The numbers are just what we'd predict on the basis of
> chance. Astrologers are likely to argue that full birth charts are needed to
> predict personality accurately. But what ordinary people talk about is sun
> signs. If those are useless when it comes to sizing up a mate, then that
> knocks a big hole in everyday belief."
>  
> ·        Rise of the 'phoneymoon'
> An increasing number of unmarried couples want to splash out on a no-holds
> barred honeymoon, reports the Telegraph
> <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/main.jhtml?xml=/travel/2007/03/29/etphoneym
> oon.xml> . Marriage may be less popular than in previous generations, but an
> increasing number of couples still want to splash out on a no-holds barred
> honeymoon, according to a new report on travel habits.
>  
> Thomas Cook, the tour operator that has just announced a merger with rival
> MyTravel, has identified a new group of holidaymakers, which it has dubbed the
> 'phoneymooners'. These are committed couples who prefer to avoid the hassle
> and cost of a formal wedding but refuse to miss out on a trip of a lifetime.
> Typically, they choose the Maldives, Mexico or Sri Lanka for their romantic
> break.
>  
> The operator declined to reveal how many people fell into this bracket, but
> claimed it was a significant number. The company sells around three million
> holidays each year. Thomas Cook added there were a growing number of couples
> expecting their first child, who take one last holiday as a twosome. It dubbed
> this group the "babymooners". A third trend identified by the operator was for
> grandparents to take their grandchildren away without the parents. The report
> said: "These breaks are a welcome rest for parents and a treat for both
> children and their grandparents."

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- PERSONAL INTEGRITY AND LEADERSHIP?

> In a message dated 4/2/2007 12:59:33 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
> smartmarriages at lists101.his.com writes:
>> Which I've been accused of all day [bias] because I sent out an article last
>> week where someone wrote an article in the Orlando Sun that apparently was in
>> favor of John Edwards - I didn't even notice.  I was focused on the  "martial
>> discussion". 
>  
> Response:  
> I am the writer who wrote the article about presidential politics in the
> Orlando Sentinel.  I did NOT write the article to win votes for John Edwards.
> In fact, I have no idea who I am voting for.  The point of the piece was that
> "character integrity" is a key issue for any leader in any job.  How can you
> possibly respect and trust someone who thinks that marital infidelity/sexual
> philandering is OK? Especially when they condemn others while they're doing
> it, too, but just haven't been caught...yet.  If the principal of your child's
> school is dilly-dallying around, would you say "Oh that's OK.  He runs the
> school great"?  If a company's CEO is discovered to be having an affair, do
> employees say "Oh that's OK.  Sales are up"?  Shouldn't the President of the
> United States be held to (at least) the same standards?  Quite simply, I'd
> like to be able to respect and trust my president, whoever he may be.  (I am
> married to my first and only husband for 17 years.)
> Sheryl P. Kurland

Yes, that's the question on the table. There are those that take the
position that "it's about time" and that IF the school or company or church
or country is being run great, then the sexual dilly-dally and hypocrisy or
lack of integrity in the leader's PERSONAL life do not matter - that a
leader's private life and job performance can be/should be
compartmentalized. Whatever any one of us thinks, it's clear that this
election cycle is going to be different - nothing we could have imagined
even 4 years ago.  We can't put the toothpaste back in the U-tube and we're
already in the midst of a new discussion about marriage, divorce,
infidelity, remarriage, stepparenting, and personal integrity and with the
gloves off and the likes of U-Tube we've probably not seen anything yet. I
can think of many topics that still seems "off limits", not yet ready for
examination but it's probably just one u-Tube week away.  And, really, it's
not about us. As with everything, the children are listening and forming
their opinions. As I watched 20/20, I thought about the teenagers that might
be watching.  We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto. - diane

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