- Wait…..hang on a second. Being overly devoted to one’s material possessions doesn’t make for wedded bliss? Thanks to researcher Jason Carroll, a professor of family life at Brigham Young University, the world now knows this great truth. Carroll led a study on materialism and marriage because few researchers have examined how attitudes about money affect relationships. They found that materialists have unhappier marriages than couples who don't care much about possessions. Their findings held true across all socioeconomic groups and even when two money-loving, possession-centric souls entering wedded bliss were no better off. "We thought it would be the incongruent or unmatched pattern that would be most problematic, where one's a spender and one's a saver," Carroll stated. "Our study found that it's the couples where both spouses have high levels of materialism that struggle the most.” Most studies into this subject have focused on the link between financial troubles and marital woes, but Carroll and his team took a different slant. Other studies have found that people who are materialistic are also more anxious, depressed, and insecure than non-materialistic types, but now those types have something else to concern themselves with. Even if they are sound financially. "We really wanted to look at the meaning side of it, and the values people bring to this part of marriage and family life," Carroll reasoned. Their study was fairly lazy in its approach, collecting online questionnaires from 1,734 married couples through the RELATE Institute, a national research non-profit. The institute offers an online, research-based "relationship assessment" questionnaire used by many marriage counselors and couples. Respondents pay $20 per person, so it seems like a solid guess to say that those who complete the questionnaire take it seriously - except for perhaps husbands dragged into it by their nagging wives. Question focus on marital satisfaction, conflict patterns, marital communication, marriage stability and other factors. One query asks respondents to rate their agreement with the phrase "Having money and lots of things has never been important to me." Carroll and his team measured responses to that prompt and found 14 percent of marriages were matches between two non-materialists. Eleven percent featured a wife who was highly materialistic while the husband was not; in another 14 percent, that mismatched pattern was reversed. An additional 20 percent of couples were made up of two married materialists and the rest of the couples fell into the middle ground of neither particularly materialistic nor money-indifferent. Non-materialistic couples were about 10 percent to 15 percent better off in categories including marital satisfaction, marriage stability and lower levels of conflict, researchers found. "What we found was a general pattern that materialism seems to be harmful to marriage," Carroll said. "It's probably best described as an erosion effect … What we see is across all of these areas, a notable and significant decrease for couples where one or both of the spouses were materialistic." Glad we’ve got that settled………
- By this point in the NBA lockout, most players have decided how they’re going to spend their extra free time now that games are being canceled and the entire season is in jeopardy. Players who want to play overseas have signed deals in Turkey, China, Germany, Italy or Israel and are locked in with their temporary new teams. Some players have found assistant coaching jobs with college teams and others are pursuing other, non-basketball interests such as acting or music. A few are knee-deep in the labor battle and attending negotiation sessions between the players and owners, but New York Knicks forward Amare Stoudemire says some players are working on another side project: starting their own league. Stoudemire ruminated on the possible cancellation of the 2011-12 season and he claims that players have given "serious" consideration to starting their own league to fill the basketball void. "Obviously we're trying to ... get this lockout resolved. We want to play NBA basketball. But if it doesn't happen what are we gonna do? We can't just sit around and not do anything. So we have to figure out ways to now continue to play basketball at a high level against top competition and have fun doing it. So, that's the next step," Stoudemire said Tuesday night at a promotional event in Manhattan for his new sneaker, the Nike Air Max Sweep Thru. The idea itself sounds awesome……until you factor in all of the hurdles players would need to clear to get a renegade league off the ground. They would have to figure out a way to finance and determine salaries, lock down venues for games, negotiate broadcast rights and secure player insurance, just to name a few. Stoudemire had no logistical breakdown to offer, but did not back down for the idea. "If we don't go to Europe, then let's start our own league; that's how I see it," he stated. When asked to gauge how seriously the idea is being considered, he replied, "It's very, very serious. It's just a matter of us strategically coming up with a plan, a blueprint and putting it together. So we'll see how this lockout goes. If it goes one or two years, then we've got to start our own league." Whether or not the new league happens will hinge largely on what happens when the two sides meet with federal mediator George Cohen on Tuesday. Without substantial progress toward an agreement, commissioner David Stern believes the league will not have games before Christmas. Stern has already canceled the first two weeks of the 2011-12 regular season and the lockout hits its 107th day on Saturday. Both players and owners insist they know how infuriated fans are over the lockout and what they are risking by missing games, but that has not led to progress in negotiations. Perhaps a league of their own was a discussion for Stoudemire and other star players when they participated in a charity game in Miami earlier this month. The prospect of a player-created league is interesting on many levels, but mostly because it’s so unrealistic and will be virtually impossible to pull off………
- It has been at least a decade and a half since MTV has been about music at all, but the network is allegedly trying to get back to music - allegedly. This time, MTV is not exporting crappy American pop to the world, but instead bringing the worlds music to the United States. With its new program, "The MTV Iggy Show," and its new Iggy branding, the network claims it is looking to expose American audiences to great sounds from around the globe. “What we've done traditionally in the past at MTV is we've taken versions of MTV and customized it to local audiences (internationally)," said Nusrat Durrani, MTV World's senior vice president and general manager. "What MTV Iggy is about is about global pop culture and global pop music, which actually is borderless. ... MTV is bringing the world to America." Of course, "The MTV Iggy Show" won't be on MTV’s flagship channel. It will debut Monday on mtvU and only air selected segments of the show on its other networks, including MTV2 and MTV, as well as on its website. “The MTV Iggy Show” will be comprised of videos and dispatches from around the world and be partnered with a new website, MTVIggy.com, that includes videos, performances and other content from worldwide artists. Despite its odd moniker, the Iggy brand has no connection to punk rock legend Iggy Pop. MTV also plans to market the brand heavily through both Twitter and Facebook. “Our audiences are discovering music now because of digital technology and social music. They're connecting from artists from faraway places. Frankly, we think that America could benefit from understanding the world a little bit better, and music is one of those windows. So what MTV Iggy does is provide America with a window to view global pop culture through," Durrani said. That sounds great and it’s about time that Americans stop believing that their culture is supreme to all others and embraced the idea that great contributions can come from elsewhere in the world, but Durrani’s statement ignores one thing: MTV fans aren't discovering new music through MTV. So the network can pump bands from Korea, Pakistan and other countries where English is not the native language, but expecting its Jersey Shore and Teen Mom fans to appreciate the effort is going to be asking too much. But in ambitious fashion, MTV is kicking off its Iggy brand with a contest that will crown the "best new band in the world" on Nov. 10………….
- The exchange doesn’t seem fair, but Israel and Hamas reached a deal on a prisoner swap for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit on Tuesday. Schalit, who was seized by Hamas-backed Gaza militants in a cross-border raid in 2006, has been held ever since and Israel had to agree to release 450 Palestinians in the exchange. However, those freed prisoners will not be allowed to return to their homes in the West Bank, Gaza or east Jerusalem, a Hamas official said Thursday. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the official suggested a substantial number of the released prisoners may face deportation. He said that 272 of the 450 prisoners to be released in the initial stage of the swap can go home, but the remaining 178 are likely to be deported to third countries or -- if they are from the West Bank or east Jerusalem -- to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. No possible destinations for deportees were named, but the fact that the deal is being done at all is a relief after a five-year, fits-and-starts negotiating process for Schalit’s release. In total, Israel will release more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. The remaining 550 are expected to be freed in a second phase in about two months. One can only imagine the feeling of prisoners' families after waiting for years or even decades to see their loved ones, only to find out that their father, brother, son or husband isn't coming home and that they’ll have to go to some Third World country to be with them again. Hamas is taking a lot of heat from Palestinian critics for agreeing to so many deportations after repeated insistences that all freed prisoners would be allowed to return home. Hamas officials have placed the blame for the number of planned deportations on Israel, pointing out that Israeli officials wanted far more prisoners deported. Israel has defended its stance on the grounds that the deportations will alleviate a potentially major security risk to the Jewish state. Regardless of their final destination, the prisoners from the first wave of the plan should all be released by next Tuesday or Wednesday, said another Hamas official, Saleh Aruri. Getting the deal done also required assistance from Egyptian mediators, none of whom have commented on the final agreement. Israeli officials will hand over Palestinian prisoners to the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Schalit will be transferred into the custody of Egyptian authorities. Among the released Palestinian prisoners will allegedly be seven who have served around three decades in Israeli jails. For Israel, it will be the end of a stressful saga and for the world, it will be one less political headache on a planet full of them………
- Sir, put down the Whopper and get your hands where I can see them! Sound absurd? Not if you’re a resident of Oak Park, Ill. and village officials have their way. Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago, could soon become the first town in America to add burgers, fries, tacos and subs to the same category as cell phones in terms of using/consuming them while driving. Distracted driving is a clear problem across the nation to the extent that insurance companies are making tongue-in-cheek references to the stupid things people do while behind the wheel. Village officials are actually discussing a possible ban on eating, drinking and grooming behind the wheel. What kind of ass hat would actually suggest trying to enforce a ban on people grubbing, drinking or shaving behind the wheel? That would be village trustee Collette Lueck, who of course is going with the notion that her plan is all about public safety. It’s also all about adding one more un-enforceable law to the books because there is no way officers are going to be able to stop everyone who takes a sip from their water bottle, a bite from their turkey sandwich or shaves that last patch of their chin in the right hand lane while cruising through town. Sure, research shows 80 percent of car crashes and near collisions involve distracted drivers, but this idea is asinine. What’s next, no looking in your visor mirror while driving? No music while behind the wheel? Can people not reach for something sitting on their passenger’s seat? Sure, the opportunity to be the first in the United States to do anything is enticing, but someone else on the village council needs to pull Lueck aside, punch her in the face and give her seat on the council to someone else…………
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