For the first friend, well, life is hard and love is scary. There is no road map, no handbook, to tell you how cool or hot to play it with men to win the jackpot. But what would you be winning? Would you even know what you're getting when you're so focused on what you're doing in the relationship than the on state of it? Could you even see far enough outside of yourself to see him clearly?

For the second friend. Sure she might just really want to stay single.

Or she might be like a friend of mine, who, in her mid 30's is still looking to date tall, dark, thin, wealthy, well-educated, and handsome, even though she's clearly got issues with food and smoking. Being judgmental doesn't mean you are practicing good judgment.

Or she could just be holding out for love, and since she doesn't know what love looks like yet, she describes it in material concrete parameters she thinks you'll understand. A representation of perfect.

And you, you got a man. But are you madly in love with him? Does his flesh feel like your only home? Do your eyes light up when you talk about him to your unlucky friends? Do you dream of his children as if they are the only future you care about? Then don't marry him.

When you have all your neurotic ducks in a row it turns out that getting and staying in a relationship is fairly easy. Being in love with that person is hard.

I'm actually surprised this hasn't made national news sooner....

http://jar.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/23/1/97

http://www.metrolyrics.com/run-a-train-lyrics-project-pat.html

http://www.whataboutourdaughters.com/2008/07/22-yo-black-woman-to-11-year-old-black-girl-gang-raped-by-20-men-and-boys-that-girl-knew-what-she-was-doing/

Read it and weep. They probably didn't even think they were doing something wrong. They probably felt perfectly entitled to do what they did because she was in a situation where they could take advantage of her without anyone intervening.

I don't like to think of myself as a vengeful person, but deep down, part of me hopes that when they go to jail they stay there long enough to catch a train themselves.

In this case, because the history of the development of socialized police forces has been as fraught and political as health care.

Arguments were made in the 1800's that government control of police was a sign of increasing totalitarianism, and loss of freedom. Arguments that are not unlike the arguments against socialized medicine that are being made today.

Just because something seems like a no-brainer now does not mean it was not a subject of heated debate when it was first introduced. Someday our decendants may look back on this debate and wonder why we were all so completely insane as to let healthcare be managed for profit, the way you assume law-enforcement is naturally the provenance of government.

Anesthesia during surgery, for instance, was once decried as immoral because it unnaturally aleviated (god-intended) pain.