I do?

In Mark Regnerus' article, Freedom to Marry Young,  he has a rather interesting view on the time the average person should settle down and find a partner. For men today, the average age of marraige is 28. since 1970, that number has certainly gone up, but for women as well. with the narrowing age gap between spouses, and the thought of "throwing your life away" before you already have one is becoming more of the norm of thinking. But do we still believe that choosing between a substantial lifestyle and an education have such drastic conseqences?
Most women today will not give much serious thought of marriage until their late 20s (AKA after college). A lot of this thought however is the jump of equality for everyone today, such as "womens education is just as important as mens"; with this kind of popular mindset, are we really surprised people are focusing less on a wife/husband and more on themsleves? Like Regnerus wrote, "we are sending mixed messages. I understand where Regnerus is coming from, but again, the weight of society's want and what our "common sense" or what our parents want, its a little confusing.  Now don't confuse my confusion as an excuse. 

Inauguration Speech banned from Fourth Graders

Brett Meteyer is a fourth grade teacher in Michigan who has gotten lots of comments for the actions he chose to take charge of regarding the inaugural speech yesterday. On Monday, Meteyer sent out an email to his students' families giving notice he was going to show the inauguration ceremony, but refraining them from viewing Trump's personal speech. Part of his email wrote,  "because I am concerned about my Students and your children being exposed to language and behavior that is not in concert with the most conservative social and family values, I have decided to show the inauguration of Donald Trump this Friday, but we will not view Mr. Trump's inauguration speech,"...
"I showed  the speeches of Presidents Obama and Bush in 2009 and 2005, respectively, but I am anxious about showing Mr. Trump's inaugural address, given his past inflammatory and degrading comments about minorities, women, and the disabled. I am also uneasy about Mr. Trump's casual use of profanity, so I sought and assurance that as their teacher, I would not be exposing children to language that would not appear in G- or PG-rated movies."
After this email was sent out, many parents were found upset and even angry for it, taking it to Facebook, unleashing even more comments. Now many people are questioning whether Meteyer was doing a righteous act to protect his students, or if he's a snowflake- loving Hillary advocate, using his position of "power" by keeping his students from viewing a turning point in history. "What kind of message does this send to our kids? 'This president is a bad guy and kids should not watch him?' This is a piece of history and the kids should be allowed to watch," says Steve Grindr, a conservative radio host who posted Meteyer's email to Facebook. Given the responses this has received, I do understand where this teacher is coming from. As someone who is responsible for the well being of young students, I would want someone who is doing so in the best judgment. However, as much as he is disliked, I have faith in my country's leader to not make stupid remarks about "women" or "racism" during his speech. He has history of saying stupid things, but not enough to make him stupid. This man, as "unfit" as some say he is, had to be qualified to even be in the running. Our president may say things that will offend you, by don't put that off by saying he didn't work hard and think smart to be where he is now.

Social Media's Response

First things first, I have to admit that this was not my first choice for a blog topic. I was prepared to give a weekly review on our economy, but this week I went home, turned on the TV with my family, and watched a pretty ballsy episode of the show 'Blackish', a show our family enjoys together. The episode was titled "Lemons", featuring the response of the Johnson family post- election. With the children's school taking the day off for "reflection", only to invite the students for a healing rally when returning, and tension in the workplace for main character Dre Johnson. The family being portrayed as strong democrats, they wonder what went wrong with their country, making a rather mocking scene when one of Dre's female coworkers admits she voted for Trump. You can watch the clip from People Magazine's article here.

A Nation of States

I'm reading Mark J. Perry's article, I had found out some fairly interesting statistics about our nations economic output. Now with everything that has gone on politically, I think it's safe to say that a great number of Americans think that our country is a disappointment, a joke, and even not worth representing. And I understand that we, the people, are not a perfect people. In fact, this country is full of mistakes, but it is our job to try and fix that, not watch from the sidelines and cry in our safe spaces. Looking at the graph shown by Perry, America, and even our state's GDP (including California, Texas, Florida and New York) are the leading runners on the globe. That's saying quite a bit for a "disappointment of a country".