when the earth was made

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Yehuda Devir

How America's Idea Of Illegal Immigration Doesn't Always Match Reality

more info on the statistics on npr

13 Questions to Ask Before Getting Married

When it comes to marriage, what you don’t know really can hurt you.

Whether because of shyness, lack of interest or a desire to preserve romantic mystery, many couples do not ask each other the difficult questions that can help build the foundation for a stable marriage, according to relationship experts.

In addition to wanting someone with whom they can raise children and build a secure life, those considering marriage now expect their spouses to be both best friend and confidant. These romantic-comedy expectations, in part thanks to Hollywood, can be difficult to live up to.

Sure, there are plenty of questions couples can ask of each other early in the relationship to help ensure a good fit, but let’s face it: most don’t.

“If you don’t deal with an issue before marriage, you deal with it while you’re married,” said Robert Scuka, the executive director of the National Institute of Relationship Enhancement. It can be hard to keep secrets decade after decade, and reticence before the wedding can lead to disappointments down the line.

The following questions, intimate and sometimes awkward, are designed to spark honest discussions and possibly give couples a chance to spill secrets before it’s too late. nytimes

  1. Did your family throw plates, calmly discuss issues or silently shut down when disagreements arose?
2. Will we have children, and if we do, will you change diapers?
3. Will our experiences with our exes help or hinder us?
4. How important is religion? How will we celebrate religious holidays, if at all?
5. Is my debt your debt? Would you be willing to bail me out?

6. What’s the most you would be willing to spend on a car, a couch, shoes?

7. Can you deal with my doing things without you?

8. Do we like each other’s parents?

9. How important is sex to you?

10. How far should we take flirting with other people? Is watching pornography O.K.?

11. Do you know all the ways I say “I love you”?

12. What do you admire about me, and what are your pet peeves?

13. How do you see us 10 years from now?

everybody hates you: Ted Cruz And The Senate: Now We've Got Bad Blood

Even though the thought of Donald Trump at the top of the ticket is making a lot of Republicans in Congress queasy, they're not exactly flocking to the guy in second place to save them — Ted Cruz. Cruz did not have a single endorsement from any of his Senate colleagues, until this week when Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah committed his support. Marco Rubio, on the other hand, has landed 14 Senate endorsements.

That's because the bad blood between Cruz and his colleagues runs so deep.

It's Getting Awkward

Probably the most awkward question you can ask Republican senators these days is why they're still giving Ted Cruz the cold shoulder when it comes to endorsements.

"Well, I think you know the answer to that," said Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma.

"I'm going to let you ... speculate about that," offered Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.

"I think it's pretty obvious," said Dean Heller of Nevada, without elaborating further.

What each of these senators is tiptoeing around is common knowledge in Washington: Ted Cruz is probably the most disliked member of the Senate.

South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham, who dropped his own presidential bid, even joked about it at the Washington Press Club dinner last month.

"If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody could convict you," Graham said to a ballroom full of reporters.

Cause, Baby, Now We've Got Bad Blood

How did the relationship go so wrong? Well, the romance never took off.

During Cruz's very first year in the Senate, he and a group of House Republicans helped force a 16-day government shutdown. At the time, in 2013, he crowed about it. But his Senate Republican colleagues were fuming. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire said Cruz had led them on with a promise to defund Obamacare.

"You know, we've been asking from the beginning: What's the end game? How does this end? How do you achieve what you're purporting to achieve on defunding Obamacare? And I never got an answer to that," Ayotte told reporters when the government was reopening that October.

And then there was the time Cruz flirted with the idea of defunding the president's executive action on immigration. He fumbled a procedural maneuver on the Senate floor, which forced his colleagues to come to work on a Saturday. Not the kind of smooth move that will earn one's way into senators' hearts.

"You should have an end goal in sight if you're going to do these types of things," said Utah Republican Orrin Hatch that weekend in December 2014. "And I don't see any end goal that can be won — other than just irritating a lot of people."

And then, of course, there was the time Cruz called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar.

"He is willing to say things he knows are false. That has consequences for how this body operates," said Cruz during a nearly 20-minute speech on the Senate floor last July. The spat was over renewing the Export-Import Bank.

But this year, Republicans anguishing over the rise of Donald Trump can see that Cruz has pulled way ahead of Marco Rubio, who has the most Senate endorsements. Maybe it's time for the rift between Cruz and his colleagues to heal.

Republican Bill Cassidy of Louisiana compared it to marriage.

"Occasionally my wife has said something to me, or I to her, that we wish we had not said later. At the time, we're thinking, 'Oh, my gosh.' But we've worked through that, and we forget it, and we move on because there's something far more important than an occasional harsh word," said Cassidy.

Utah's Lee became the first senator to endorse Cruz, on Thursday. Maybe others will follow. Even the guy who joked about murdering Cruz on the Senate floor is coming around.

"Increasingly more clear to me that Ted Cruz is the most viable alternative to Donald Trump," Sen. Graham said this week. "I think a Trump candidacy would be a disaster for the Republican brand. I think John Kasich and Rubio are more electable than Ted, but Ted's running effectively as an outsider in an outsider year."

But, of course, no outsider wants too many love notes from Republican senators. npr

supreme court legalizes gay marriage nationwide!

The court ruled 5-4 that the Constitution's guarantees of due process and equal protection under the law mean that states cannot ban same-sex marriages. With the ruling, gay marriage will become legal in all 50 states.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing on behalf of the court, said that the hope of gay people intending to marry "is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization's oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right."

Kennedy, a conservative who often casts the deciding vote in close cases, was joined in the majority by the court's four liberal justices. "The ancient origins of marriage confirm its centrality, but it has not stood in isolation from developments in law and society," Kennedy wrote. His opinion included a history of how ideas of marriage have evolved along with the changing roles and legal status of women.

How Mexico Quietly Legalized Same-Sex Marriage

In the U.S., the Supreme Court's widely anticipated ruling on same-sex marriage has been the focus of nonstop speculation and debate. In Mexico, meanwhile, the highest court effectively legalized same-sex unions this month with a decision that was so low key many failed to notice.

Mexico's Supreme Court quietly published an opinion, known as a jurisprudential thesis, ruling that defining marriage as a union only between a man and a woman is discriminatory and in violation of Mexico's constitution.

While the court did not explicitly say that same-sex unions were legal, the decision is seen as having that effect. And this month's ruling follows a number of court decisions in the past year that pointed in the same direction.

Same-sex marriage has been advancing steadily in Latin America. Argentina was the first to legalize it, in 2010, followed by Brazil and Uruguay. Other have been taking steps along this path.

Until recently, it has been extremely difficult for same-sex couples to be wed in Mexico, as Victor Manuel Aguirre and Fernando Urias know all too well.

Speaking by phone from their home in Mexicali, just across the border from Calexico, California, Aguirre says the couple tried four times in the past two years to marry at city hall.

Each time they were confronted by protesters, hostile local officials, and legal obstacles. They finally took their case all the way to Mexico's highest court, which ruled in their favor. They were wed back on Jan. 17.

"After so much troubles," Aguiree says with a laugh.

Fernando Urias says the ruling is not perfect, but "it will be much easier and much faster than it was for us. Now couples won't have to do all we did."

Couples denied marriage licenses can now directly appeal to local judges who will be bound by the Supreme Court ruling and must force local clerks to issue the license.

"No judge can exclude same-sex couples from marriage in any part of the country," says Estefania Vela Barba, an associate law professor in Mexico City.

She says the Supreme Court justices particularly objected to state laws that determined the purpose of marriage as procreation. Vela Barba says the court ruled such statements as incorrect and discriminatory.

"So for all purposes, there is no reason to exclude same-sex couples from marriage because they can perform what marriage is about ... helping each other out," she says. npr

6 reasons to sleep naked

Pack away the flannel pajamas: A handful of studies and surveys show sleeping naked could actually be good for you. Six reasons why you should consider it:

1. You may like your partner more: A 2014 survey of Brits by Cotton USA (which promotes cotton products that likely include both pajamas and sheets) found that 57% of those who slept nude reported being happy in their relationship. That was 9 percentage points more than PJ wearers, followed by 43% of nightie wearers. Onesie wearers—they apparently exist—brought up the rear at 38%, per the Daily Mail.
2. It could help prevent diabetes: It's a bit of a stretch, but here's the logic: Adults have small amounts of brown fat (aka "good fat") in their bodies, and a 2014 study looked at how bedroom temperature affected the fat.
   
   The four-month study was small: just five males who slept in rooms heated to 66-, 75-, or 81-degrees. After four weeks spent at the coldest temp, the men had almost twice as much brown fat, and their insulin sensitivity was better, which a researcher says could lower their diabetes risk.
   
   Four weeks at 81 degrees undid all the benefits. Though the New York Times points out the test subjects slept in hospital scrubs, going naked could help prevent overheating.
3. It's better for your lady health:Cosmopolitan cites advice from Dr. Jennifer Landa, who points out that an overly warm environment could spur too much yeast or bacteria to grow in the vaginal area. By passing on PJs, you'll have a better chance of giving air access to the region, preventing infections.
4. It's how our ancestors did it: If you're a Paleo-dieter who eats like a caveman, why not sleep like one, too? Neurologist Rachel Salas with the Johns Hopkins Center for Sleep in 2013 told the Wall Street Journal that "back in the cave days," people slept naked. It was, in part, a means of protection from predators, and that feeling of safety could be imparted by sleeping similarly in modern day.
5. It could be better for the immune system:Mic reports that when skin-on-skin contact occurs, our adrenal glands get a message: lighten up on the production of the stress hormone cortisol. As one doctor explains, "Cortisol suppresses the immune response." Skin-to-skin contact also increases levels of oxytocin, which can have positive effects on blood pressure and healing, says Salas.
6. Body temp affects sleep: A 2004 study found that for sleep to "initiate normally," core body temp matters. Per a researcher, "Studies of sleep onset insomniacs show that they consistently have a warmer core body temperature immediately before initiating sleep, when compared with normal healthy adults." msn

Want To Perk Up Your Love Life? Put Away That Smartphone

70 percent of women in a recent survey said smartphones were interfering in their romantic relationship....

The study, published Monday in the journal Psychology of Popular Media Culture, says technology and the screens that consume us are creating "technoference" in couples.

That ranges from picking up the phone while partners are casually hanging out to checking Facebook while in the middle of an argument.

You see it everywhere, says Sarah Coyne, psychologist at Brigham Young University and an author of the study. Like at a restaurant where couples have their phones, "both of them, on the table, right there. I think that is so easy for them to pick it up if it buzzes."

The study surveyed 143 married or cohabiting heterosexual women and asked them about their phone, TV, computer and tablet habits. It also asked about how their partner used technology, if there was any conflict about using technology, and about their satisfaction with their relationship and life overall.

They also reported that of five scenarios presented to them, the most common interference was seeing a partner pick up his phone during "couple leisure time," with 62 percent of women reporting this happened at least once a day.

Forty percent of women said their men would get distracted by the TV during a conversation at least once a day, while a third said he would take out his phone in the middle of a conversation or during a meal together. A quarter said their partner would actually send texts or emails to another person while they were having a face-to-face conversation.

But worse than the intrusions was the way they made the women feel; they found, as you might expect, that conflict over technology was associated with poorer relationships, which in turn were associated with lower life satisfaction.

npr

first same-sex couple to publicly marry in Myanmar

The first same-sex couple to publicly marry in Myanmar tied the knot in a ceremony on Saturday, in a symbol advocates hailed as progress for the predominantly Buddhist Southeast Asian nation. 

After 10 years together, Tin Ko Ko and Myo Min Htet exchanged vows in an upscale hotel in Rangoon Saturday, dressed in traditional Myanmar clothes and adorned with garlands of jasmine, reports the Bangkok Post.

Although their union is not legally valid in Myanmar,  the couple acknowledged that the public ceremony — the first of its kind in the nation, also known as Burma — was a significant milestone in a country that still technically criminalizes homosexuality under colonial-era penal codes. Same-sex marriages have taken place before, but this was the first public celebration in the nation, which neither expressly allows nor bans such unions. 

"My family accepted me," Tin Ko Ko, 38, said in an emotional speech, according to the Post. "I am so glad that my parents were understanding ... but [my husband] had to overcome many difficulties from his family." advocate.com

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she's so busy being free

Mapping Emotions On The Body: Love Makes Us Warm All Over

Close your eyes and imagine the last time you fell in love. Maybe you were walking next to your sweetheart in a park or staring into each other's eyes over a latte.

Where did you feel the love? Perhaps you got "butterflies in your stomach" or you're heart raced with excitement.

When a team of scientists in Finland asked people to map out where they felt different emotions on their bodies, it found that the results were surprisingly consistent, even across cultures.

People reported that happiness and love sparked activity across nearly the entire body, while depression had the opposite effect: It dampened feelings in the arms, legs and head. Danger and fear triggered strong sensations in the chest area, the volunteers said. And anger was one of the few emotions that activated the arms.

The scientists hope that these body emoticons may one day help psychologists diagnose or treat mood disorders.

"Our emotional system in the brain sends signals to the body so we can deal with our situation," says Lauri Nummenmaa, a psychologist at Aalto University who lead the study.

npr

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US same sex marriage laws as of 12/21/2013

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The Supreme Court struck down portions of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) as well as ended challenges to marriage equality in California this year.