♫Boy the way Glenn Miller played♫....
"Single mothers viewed negatively, poll says; But survey finds same-sex parents gaining acceptance" by Carol Morello, Washington Post / February 17, 2011
WASHINGTON — Even as they have grown more comfortable with same-sex or unmarried couples raising children, about two-thirds of those in a recent poll still view single mothers detrimental to society, according to a new poll of attitudes toward the country’s soaring number of nontraditional families.
I view war as detrimental.
I view looting the national treasury for Wall Street as detrimental.
I view a criminally-complicit, divisive and distracting corporate media as detrimental.
But let's beat up on single moms imstead.
Most types of nontraditional families are broadly accepted or at least tolerated, including same-sex couples with kids, unmarried parents, and childless women, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center. But two decades after TV’s “Murphy Brown’’ caused a public furor by having a child without a husband around, many people still draw the line when it comes to single motherhood.
This doesn't make sense to me, but then I long gave up on polls cited by an agenda-pushing media.
The poll illustrates how dramatically attitudes have changed from the not-so-distant past, when the typical family was a married couple with children and virtually every other kind of family was considered abnormal. Today nuclear families make up 1 in 5 households in the United States, census statistics show. And nearly 4 in 10 births are to unmarried women, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
I'm starting to smell an agenda-pushing stink.
“People aren’t embracing these changes, but they are accepting them,’’ said Rich Morin, a senior editor at the Pew Center and author of the report. “The days when people were made to wear a scarlet letter or were shunned after a divorce are ancient history.’’
And they HAVE BEEN for DECADES!! WTF, readers?
*********
The poll results suggest that Americans fall largely into three equally sized camps.
Talk about an AGENDA-PUSHING POLL in the DIVISIVE DOG S*** that passes for a NEWSPAPER!
Yeah, we are ALL in DAMN NEAR AGREEMENT on and END to the WARS BUILT on LIES; the END of CORPORATE and WALL STREET LOOTING of the NATION; and we all want a DECENT, SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH SYSTEM like the REST of the WORLD, but the BG here is going to DIVVY US ALL UP on the SOCIAL ISSUES I really could CARE LESS ABOUT!
So which "camp" do you fall into, dear American
Roughly a third said the trends have no impact on society or are positive. People who were positive about the changing family were overwhelmingly women, Hispanics, and East Coast residents who rarely if ever attend religious services.
I guess that part would be me.
Another third considered most of the changes harmful to society. The only trends they accepted were interracial marriage and fewer women having children. People who were unhappy with the trajectory tended to be older white Republicans who are married and religiously observant. They also were more likely to be from the Midwest or South.
I'm a little bit country I guess....
The third group tended to accept all the changes except for single motherhood. Virtually all said the growing prevalence of mothers who have no male partners around to help them raise children is bad for society. This group tended to be young, Democratic or independent, and more heavily minority.
I'm always so disappointed by my blind brothers and sisters across the aisle.
And they have the nerve to holler racist and other things at the Tea Party Patriots?
With so many different kinds of families, many people see firsthand the impact on children, Morin added, and consider it mostly positive.
“We see gay and lesbian couples raising children in loving environments,’’ he said. “We see young mothers going off to work and coming home to raise happy, well-adjusted children. Then we see the sometimes tragic consequences of single parenthood, with just one person juggling so many roles.’’
Andrew Cherlin, a Johns Hopkins University sociologist who studies families, said the poll underscores the widespread acceptance of two-parent families, of almost any ilk.
“Working mothers are acceptable to almost everybody,’’ he said. “Two parents who are unmarried are tolerated or acceptable. But many people, including single parents themselves, question single-parent families. There’s still a strong belief that children need two parents.’’
Yes, I think it would be better but that is not reality.
And then my mind strays to all the Muslim kids who have had parents taken away by AmeriKa's immoral and illegal wars.
--more--"
Related: More listed in state as same-sex couples
Teens ask for more sex ed, greater condom availability
Patrick gives protection to transgender state workers
I'm so proud!
♫Guys like us we had it made♫....
"Betty Garrett, actress hindered by Hollywood blacklist; at 91" by Andrew Dalton, Associated Press / February 14, 2011
LOS ANGELES — Betty Garrett, the vivacious Broadway star who played Frank Sinatra’s sweetheart in two MGM musicals before her career was hampered by the Hollywood blacklist, has died in Los Angeles, her son said yesterday. She was 91....
Ms. Garrett had been in good health and taught her usual musical comedy class at Theater West, the nonprofit organization she helped found, on Wednesday night, but Friday checked into the hospital with heart trouble, and died with her family at her side the following morning.
Ms. Garrett played the flirtatious girl in love with the shy Sinatra in “Take Me Out to the Ballgame’’ and “On the Town,’’ both in 1949, and later in life she became well-known to TV audiences with recurring roles in the 1970s sitcoms “All in the Family’’ and “Laverne and Shirley.’’
When POLITICS, WAR, and things of those nature were at least discussed. Programs like M*A*S*H, All in the Family, and Barney Miller at least raised questions and issues. Since then the sitcom world has resembled Murrow's vast wasteland.
Her movie career was brief, largely because of the red hunt in Congress led by members who forced her husband, actor Larry Parks, to testify about his earlier membership in the Communist Party.
Parks had won stardom and an Academy Award nomination as best actor for his dynamic portrayal of singer Al Jolson in the 1946 “The Jolson Story.’’ But in 1951, he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and testified that he had joined the Communist Party in 1941 and left in 1944 or 1945.
Pressed to name his fellow members of the party, Parks pleaded not to be forced “to crawl through the mud as an informer.’’ He agreed to testify fully in executive session.
He made one more film, “Love Is Better Than Ever’’ with Elizabeth Taylor, then his film career was over.
“It was a dark period, a foolish, foolish period,’’ Ms. Garrett said in 1998. “It destroyed a lot of lives and ruined my husband’s career.’’
Ms. Garrett had also had a brief dalliance with the party, but asked in 1998 if she retained bitterness that she and Parks were blacklisted, she replied: "It's not my nature to be bitter. What I feel is deep sorrow. We both, I think, were just on the verge of becoming really big stars, particularly Larry. And it just went crashing down."
--more--"
Yup, those were the days!
