“A South Korean model presents a creation by Japanese designer Kouji Toyoda in Seoul October 21, 2002. The fashion week ends on October 24.” REUTERS/Kim Kyung-hoon
Monthly Archives: October 2002
When Pigs Fly
Crushed flier wins obesity payout
“Virgin Atlantic has paid a woman passenger £13,000 (US$20,289) compensation, after she was squashed by an obese person who sat next to her on a transatlantic flight.”
Democrats Seeing Things
Clinton aide slams Pentagon’s UFO secrecy
By Richard Stenger
“(CNN) — One winter night in 1965, eyewitnesses saw a fireball streak over North America, bank, turn and appear to crash in western Pennsylvania. Then swarms of military personnel combed the area and a tarp-covered flatbed truck rumbled out of the woods. “
Old School Nintendo
Mario Twins music video
Love and Marriage
Good and Bad Marriage, Boon and Bane to Health
By SHARON LERNER
In the early 1970’s, demographers began to notice a strange pattern in life span data: married people tended to live longer than their single, divorced and widowed counterparts. The so-called marriage benefit persists today, with married people generally less likely to have surgery and to die from all causes, including stroke, pneumonia and accidents. At its widest, the gap is striking, with middle-aged men in most developed countries about twice as likely to die if they are unmarried.
Many have argued that the difference in life expectancy is actually because healthier people are more likely to marry. But an emerging group of marriage advocates has put a spotlight on the medical potential of the institution. “Marriage is sort of like a life preserver or a seat belt,” argues Dr. Linda Waite, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago and an author of “The Case for Marriage,” published in 2000. “We can put it in exactly the same category as eating a good diet, getting exercise and not smoking.”
But even as marriage is being packaged as a boon to health, there is a new caveat. While people in good, stable partnerships do, on average, have less disease and later death, mounting evidence suggests that those in strained and unhappy relationships tend to fare worse medically. Women seem to bear the brunt of marriage’s negative health consequences.