>heart!<

Brad Pitt announced Wednesday that he’s donating $100,000 to fight California’s Proposition 8, a November ballot initiative that would eliminate same-sex couples’ right to marry.

“Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn’t harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8,” the actor said in a statement.

Pitt’s donation marks the largest thus far to the anti-Prop. 8 campaign by an A-list celebrity.

Via LA Times.

 I don’t know about you, but I’d rather be going through a breakup than sitting in these poor kids’ seats:

Second, sitting three-quarters of the way up the bleacher was Bristol Palin and her eighteen-year-old impregnator, Levi Johnston. Once I noticed them, I kept my eye on Bristol and Levi. What I learned provoked an odd empathy for the awful pickle Wasilla High School’s hockey stick wielding homeboy now finds himself in.

Bristol and Levi sat shoulder-to-shoulder. But not once did they look at each other, speak to each other, or in any way acknowledge each other’s physical presence. Not once. For an entire hour. Instead, Bristol stared straight ahead and Levi had the glazed look of a trapped feral animal.

Then when Sarah wound up her autograph signing and the people sitting in front of him on the bleacher began climbing down, Levi stood up and, without looking at or speaking to his betrothed, turned in the opposite direction and walked away.

What I took away from that is that the People Magazine spin about how excited the happy couple is about their upcoming nuptials and Levi’s “Bristol” finger tattoo is the Karl Rovian nonsense that anyone who thinks about it for a scintilla of a second intuitively knows that it is. If McCain-Palin lose, my easy bet is that there will be no nuptials. But if they win, the hand Levi dealt himself by having had the poor luck to knock up the daughter of the Vice President of the United States (at the time who could have known?) will have to be played out.

Worse for me than the sound of the morning alarm is the buzz of my boyfriend’s Wackberry vibrating on the bedside table. Seriously, dude. Since when is texting more important than spooning?

But that even louder buzz you hear is the sound of 5,655 people like me grumbling about their partners.  Men’s News Daily reports this tidbit from Sheraton Hotel’s recent survey  of 6,500 traveling executives: 87 percent of them admitted, likely propped up with pillows and a scowling spouse at their side, that they bring their Blackberries to bed. And: 35 percent of them said they’d choose their PDA over their spouse. YIKES! Of course, those couples may have issues that predate the telegraph, but still.

So yeah, my boyfriend — who is not even an executive, but clearly some sort of international man of mystery — definitely brings his phone to bed. I mean, phones. He has two Blackberries plus a third phone, which is like a Bat phone for his ex, who is the only one with the number — but that’s a different story.

According to a new poll, 77 percent of people avoid discussing politics. Which is funny, ’cause around me these days, at least 77 percent of people can’t stop. But anyway: this survey, conducted by VitalSmarts and the authors of Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes are High, suggests that they dodge the topic not because they don’t care, but because conversations about politics with friends and family can be nasty, brutish, and not short enough. Nearly half of respondents, according to a press release, “have had bad experiences in the past when sharing their political views — and rather than risk a verbal battle, they hunker down and shut up.” And: “As soon as the discussion escalates or becomes the least bit controversial, only 28 percent feel they can control their own temper and only 23 percent believe they can handle if it the other person gets upset.”

Yeah, I know. This is not good for the political conversation, small or large. “This is a tragedy for democracy,” said Joseph Grenny, co-author of Crucial Conversations. “Our founding fathers believed spirited public discourse was the crucible of democratic decision-making. And here we have evidence that dialogue has all but ceased. The result is a public whose opinions are rarely tested and challenged.” (His latter point is taken, especially since we so often hang out with our own choirs, but “dialogue” has hardly “ceased.” Um: political blogs?)

But stay with me; I’m getting to my — apolitical — question. “People no longer feel safe discussing politics,” says Grenny. “These discussions quickly turn from casual conversation into personal attacks on people’s values and interests.” Especially now, apparently, with 66 percent of people, according to this study, “believing the current political race is more controversial than in past elections.” [Supercomputer? Are we sure that’s not 166 percent? — BG]

Okay. So never mind friends and family — what about more-than friends? Promising dates? On the one hand, it does always seem advisable to avoid potentially controversial topics (politics, man skirts) during early courtship. On the other, especially these days, it really does seem unavoidable, especially if your first date is at MooseBurger King. I mean hey, it comes up.

So BG wants to know: How are you handling that little conversational dance these days? Especially that — perhaps now more than ever? — your date’s red or blue status may be a deal-breaker for you? (Of course, depending on how or where you met, like at the Ron Paul dance marathon, you’ll already know.) How do you balance the demands of getting-to-know-you with your own personal need-to-know (if any)? (And of course, even planning to vote the same way doesn’t mean you feel the same way about what’s going on.) In other words, no matter what, plenty of room for other sparks to fly. So what, in terms of political conversation, is your dating campaign strategy these days?

I remember family reunions and Thanksgiving dinner tables that occasionally turned into the freaking Nuremberg trials when family members debated politics.

And weren’t we supposed to absorb those sorts of lessons and avoid repeating those mistakes in our own adult relationships?

Wait, or are we supposed to transcend the pettiness of politics in our quest for true love?

I’m so confused. But I now know this: I’m relieved, all partisanship aside, that I will not be present at The McCain Family Christmas.

In an advertorial for Maserati, the Telegraph reports the results of a new study in which 100 percent of female participants had a significant increase in testosterone secretion (i.e. arousal) after listening to that particular sports car’s revving engine. (60 percent of men had the same response to a Lamborghini.)

“The roar of a luxury car engine does cause a primeval physiological response,” said researcher psychologist David Moxon, whose work was actually commissioned by a British auto insurer (i.e. insuring that people continue, despite economic downturn and concern about other kids of emissions, to buy luxury cars). He added the sound of an average car engine actually led to a decreased level of testosterone. Which, of course, is concern #1 when shopping for an automobile.

Here’s what Switched.com had to say: “So, women, say all you like about how much you appreciate a man who drives an efficient car to save the environment, we now know what you really want.” Mmmhmm. We’re the ones who want to drive the sporty roadster, once in a while, just for fun. And then go home with the guy on the waffle bike.

So now that youngsters (myself included) are heading back to school, let’s discuss the persistent annoyance of POPULARRRITTTTY. My bespectacled, retainer-clad self has always secretly loathed these social rankings. I always give off that what-EVER vibe, but secretly, I rely on the mantra of the social-success-challenged: “You’ll be sorry when I’m older, when I’ll be far greater than this.” Mom’s version: “They won’t grow up to be nearly as great as you!”

Could either of us be actually — scientifically — correct? A recent article in the New York Times explored various sociological studies of popularity, suggesting, for one thing, that those with aggressive, dominating attitudes within the hallowed high school halls (you know, those that lettered in every sport, ever, including picking on you) carried those traits into the “real world” … where they didn’t go over well. (Picture Emily Blunt’s character in The Devil Wears Prada, who was probably a popularity nightmare in high school.)

(more…)

From the “Crap Science” files over at Jezebel:

On the heels of The Re-education of the Female, which suggests [in 2008] that women keep their men by doing chores in sexy outfits, comes a study implying that male fidelity may have more to do with genetics than wifely subservience. According to scientists at the Karolinska Institute (sounds like a ballet studio, actually a Swedish medical school), two in five men carry a gene variant that makes them less likely to commit to women.

/snip/

Men with the gene, which, as the Washington Post notes, regulates the hormone vasopressin, are more likely to live with women without marrying them; if they are married, these men are more likely to fight with their spouses and consider divorce. Their female partners (the study only looked at heterosexual couples) also “reported lower levels of satisfaction, affection, cohesion and consensus in the relationship” than partners of men without the variant.

/snip/

…This study looks at first glance like another great way to reduce human relationships to biological imperatives. As if comparisons between men and male animals weren’t popular enough, the Post cites an earlier study in which the same gene variant was found in mountain voles, who are apparently more caddish than their prairie cousins…

/snip/

The most interesting research, however, has yet to be done. The Institute plans to study whether oxytocin, another hormone, affects women’s ability to commit. This study might take some of the annoying stereotypical sting out of sex research. Thus far, much of it has been about why men “can’t commit,” with the assumption that women want them to. Corresponding research into women’s predispositions might underscore the fact that we’re not all sad little lady voles who sit around waiting for our man vole to come home. Nor are we slaves to biology. Some men and some women want to commit, and some don’t, and our goal should be to avoid a mismatch of the two, not to pore over our genes for predictors of our happiness.

Word.

Hmm. Eerie similarities between the Duchovny and McCain stories?  

David “Californication” Duchovny reportedly in rehab for sex addiction.

I do not want to believe.