Etheridge's Divorce to Seagal Sex Scandal and How to Be Boring: What I've Seen Lately

Here's the stuff that's been brought to my attention in the last 24 hours either by direct message, email, tweets, or the nightly news. Some of them deserve longer comment. Some of them only a sigh. However, I'm not in the position to comment much right now.

1. Melissa Etheridge's seven-year marriage to wife Tammy is over. I only know about this because of an email thread. I'm not even sure I ever knew Etheridge was married, certainly not that her wife Tammy Lynn keeps a blog. The most I know about her is that lesbians seem to view her as cool for being open about her sexual preference. My comment is that this is why I'm pro gay marriage. As more and more gay people say "I do" and then later don't work out their marital issues well, humans will begin to see that traditional marriage as happily ever after fairytale makes suckers of us all.
   
   Somebody always gives up something and it's the people who remain happy to give up that something who stay happily married. If the something you give up is bigger than the marriage, the marriage starts falling apart as soon as the spark goes out. Marriage is as much a faith journey as it is a love journey.
   
   
2. Steven Seagal's sex slave drama. When I first saw on local news that a Jefferson Parish reserve deputy was in trouble for keeping a sex slave and video of actor Steven Seagal flashed on the screen, I was totally confused. But this video sort of explains what I was seeing.
   
   
   
3. Why do men cheat? I've got an opinion, but MrsGrapevine has a post with a list. I tweeted to her that "Both men and women cheat because self-indulgence masquerades as self-love."
   
   
4. The bodies of babies unclaimed in Hurricane Katrina aftermath were buried recently.
   
   
5. Writer's Digest publisher Jane Friedman tweeted a post from Life Hacker,9 Great Ways to Be Exceptionally Boring, and reason 9 amused me, "Take very poor care of yourself. Drink a lot of alcohol, eat a lot of fatty foods, and get very little exercise." Considering that the whole nation is becoming more obese, then eating poorly probably does put you into the boring category that makes you part of the common herd.

And I've seen a lot of other stuff in the last 24 hours too, like the sad story of this Covington woman who murdered her grandmother. Ashley Vonhadnagy, 31, stabbed her 85-year-old granny to death, and it has come to light that Vonhadnagy suffers from mental illness. The family repeatedly tried to get her help for her schizophrenia, but the help they received wasn't enough. The case draws attention to the need for better mental health services in Louisiana.

Oh, and I also saw an email about Ning, the social networking site. Apparently things aren't going well and so Ning has decided to charge network creators a fee. It's pay or shut down, I guess. See "Ning: No More Free Netowrks."