Is enduring love and marriage an act of will? Yes. And yes.

There is always temptation. There is always opportunity. There is the boredom that comes from long familiarity which makes things that are new and enticing but forbidden all the more exciting.

Traditional wedding vows, at least here in the states, typically refer to "for better or for worse", for as much as we might all wish that life were a fairy tale and that marriage is the beginning of happily ever after, worse will surely come. The trials of living, of working, of raising children, of accepting the habits of your spouse, of running out of things to talk about, of growing in perhaps different ways and different directions, all of these things and many more are why enduring love and marriage are acts of active commitment and will. At the moments when you are weakest, that commitment and that will are the source of your strength which keeps the dividing line between right and wrong clear.

No doubt there are those who will disagree with Jenny Sanford and with me. But sometimes, love means sacrifice. Sometimes it means resisting the infatuation and sexual attraction of new "love". Sometimes, it means that selfish desires must be resisted. And the source of that resistance? Commitment, and an act of will.

...I have a right to say that I wish that she would shut up.

I didn't watch the memorial. I did see the clip leading up to Paris Jackson's heartfelt words about her daddy. That wasn't exploitation. That was a daughter's heartfelt grief at the loss of her daddy.

Ms. Berman, I don't know why you felt compelled to write this entry. Whatever your reasons, I feel compelled to tell you that the next time you find yourself similarly compelled, you ought to shut down your computer, get away from the internet and reconsider...which is a nicer way of telling you that right to write or not, you ought to shut up.

There is no prohibition or even any official discouragement from registering under the political party of your choice while on active duty. That said, there is also no particularly compelling reason to register, especially if you intend to register as a Democrat, while on active duty either.

Active duty personnel are prohibited from taking an active (read "campaigning") part in the political process, though this prohibition is not absolute and is enforced to varying degrees.

One reason that one might not want to register as a Democrat while on active duty? How about the preponderance of Republicans that surround you in the military which are part of a party often that uses words like traitor, anti-American and communist/socialist to describe people who are part of other (read "Democratic") parties?

I don't have an issue with Sestak not registering any affiliation in 2006. I do have an issue with the fact that he's yet another Blue Dog Republicrat who would have fit in with the mainstream of the Republican Party in the 1980's. And as for Specter, what was his affiliation in 2006? Yeah...thought so.

The next twenty years are not going to be like the last twenty (or thirty of forty or fifty for that matter.) Massive change is upon us with respect to energy, the environment, depletion of resources, massive debt and all that those things mean for the economy. These changes don't mean that life is going to be worse, just that it will be different.

The best single resource I am aware of that pulls all these issues together into an easily understandable, enjoyable and educational narrative is Chris Martenson's Crash Course. If you want to be able to make an educated guess about what the future holds, this is (in my opinion) the place to start. And the price? It's free. No strings attached.

See this URL...

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

...or just click my sig.

You wrote "Vote Democrat, or be a Slave." Respectfully, and as someone who as a lifelong Democrat came to this conclusion slowly and painfully, I think "Vote Democrat, and be a Slave" is just as accurate. Yes, you might be less of a slave under Democrats than the current Republican Party, but you will be a slave none the less.

The current Democratic Party is no longer the party of the working class. They are, at the national level, entirely out of touch. Elitist even. What we have now are Demopublican/Republicrats. The positions and policies of the Democratic Party in this day and age are well to the right of Nixon. The Republican Party has moved to the fringe right in the last three decades. The Democrats have taken the place that the Republican Party used to occupy. The middle did not hold.

If you are waiting for actual leadership on economic issues from the Obama-led Democratic Party which focuses on rising wages, fair trade and people instead of propping up the money changers of Wall Street and mega-banks, my advice is don't hold your breath.

Politics in America is broken. The system is broken. Laws? They only apply to us little people. But regardless of that, the fact is that the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are both working as hard as they can to prop up and sustain an unsustainable status quo. Neither party is being truthful about our economic system, our debts, our resources or the future. Neither has the spine. Unfortunately, it's the masses that will wind up paying the price.