[getrss.in: unable to retrieve full-text content]
Are divorce parties in bad taste? We love rituals. We do. They make us feel connected and purposeful. Rituals may be religious, or not. They may be shared with hundreds or few. But we love them because they are transformative. Weddings transform single ...Source: www.theage.com.au
Many mourn loss of Sussex teen killed at Surry graduation party - WDBJ7.com
SURRY — Family and friends of a Sussex County teen are mourning his death.
TyQuan Johnson, 18, was killed Saturday night after a graduation party in Surry County.
The Surry County Sheriff's Office said Johnson was caught in between two groups of people who were firing at each other in the 2100 block of Alliance Road.
Three people, including Johnson, were hit. The other two victims suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
"Everybody is taking this hard," said Irhonda Ricks, Johnson's aunt. "All we're doing is praying and leaning on another."
Surry County deputies said Johnson was hit by a stray bullet as he was running away from the shooting.
Ricks added that Johnson's mother is mourning her loss as best she can.
"She still has her moments," she said.
Johnson had graduated from Sussex Central High School Friday and was planning to attend North Carolina Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount.
Wanda Russell, whose son, Timothy Russell, played football with Johnson at the high school for about two years, was shocked by his death. She had encouraged her son to attend the graduation party where Johnson was shot, and now feels lucky that her son refused to go.
"I knew he was a good kid. I felt like a mother to him, as did many of the people who knew him from football," Russell said of Johnson. "He was always smiling and would do anything for anybody."
Russell also said her son and other students chose to go to school today to be where they knew Johnson and to be around people.
Sussex Central High School had guidance counselors stationed in the hallways when students arrived this morning. According to Arthur Jarrett, the principal of the high school, most students talked among themselves, but remained resilient as they went through their normal classroom schedule.
"TyQuan was very well-known; he was champion on the field and in the classroom," Russell said.
Ricks said there will be a vigil held in Johnson's honor Wednesday, but a time and location were not yet set.
Tributes were paid to Johnson on a Facebook page, "R.I.P TyQuan Johnson," where dozens expressed their condolences over his death.
There have been no arrests made in this case. Surry County deputies urge anyone with information to call 757-294-5264.
Source: www.wdbj7.com
Divorce cases set for city? - thesouthernreporter.co.uk
THE lawyer representing 80 practising solicitors in the Borders fears that all family business, including adoption, divorce and custody cases currently dealt with by courts in the region, will be transferred to Edinburgh from 2014, writes Andrew Keddie.
This, says Greig McDonell, will result in huge inconvenience and travel costs for interested parties, not least his own profession in which many practices have seen a major loss of income with the stagnation in house sales.
Mr McDonell is chairman of a Borders-wide committee of solicitors set up to respond to controversial proposals by the Scottish Court Service (SCS) which, in a bid to cut spending by 20 per cent, wants consideration of the closure of three of the region’s courts – Selkirk, Duns and Peebles.
Last week we reported how, under the proposals, jury trials would no longer take place at Jedburgh Sheriff Court but would be heard in Edinburgh.
On Friday, Mr McDonell attended a dialogue meeting organised by SCS at an Edinburgh Hotel. Also in attendance was Borders sheriff Kevin Drummond who has already defended the four court set-up.
“The removal of family cases to be heard by a specialist sheriff in Edinburgh was raised at the meeting; it is a very worrying suggestion and one, I’m sure, the three law faculties in the region will oppose,” said Mr McDonell. “Such a scenario will make life very difficult for people in already traumatic circumstances. It may save the SCS money but the tab will still have to be met from other public funds.”
However, he said he had taken some comfort from Friday’s meeting and SCS chief executive Eleanour Emberson’s acknowledgment of issues arising from a Borders perspective.
The SCS proposals are due to go out to public consultation in the autumn.
Email to a friend
Print this pageSource: www.thesouthernreporter.co.uk
Divorce: The Spark That Ignites the Gender War? - Huffington Post
I never thought much about gender. I never felt limited by my sex, nor entitled because of it. The "F" printed on my driver's license never had any conscious impact on my decisions in life, whether it was to go to college or not have children. My marriage was defined by relative strengths and weaknesses, a dance of interests and abilities, rather than by historical societal norms. I never thought much about gender. Until I got divorced, that is.
Once I was divorced, people assumed that I was enlisted in a war -- "us against them" -- pitting Mars against Venus. This was a war I wanted no part of, but because I was perceived to be involved, I decided that I needed to be informed.
I fall into the category of the 66 percent of divorces that are filed by women. A statistic I never knew and never wanted to know. I might have been the partner to initiate the divorce in the legal sense, but I was only responding to my husband's abandonment. I wondered how many divorces were actually desired by the woman, a far more telling statistic, but one that is often hidden behind the closed doors of a marriage.
The 1999 study, Towards Understanding the Reasons for Divorce (Wolcott and Hughes) sheds some light. According to their research (the most recent I was able to find), 64 percent of women felt like they initiated the split whereas only 23 percent of men took on that responsibility. These numbers are interesting; they show that regardless of what behaviors or thoughts led to the split, men more often feel like they are the ones being left.
When news of my divorce seeped out of my immediate circle, assumptions were made about the reasons for the split. Again, I was ignorant of the role of gender and caught off guard by the conjectures formulated by people who had never stood in my kitchen, much less my bedroom. According to Wolcott and Hughes, these top five reasons men and women leave marriages:
Men
Communication 33.3%
Incompatibility 22.6%
Affair (either self or partner) 19.7%
Financial 4.7%
Physical/Mental Health 4.7%
Women
Communication 22.6%
Affair (either self or partner) 20.3%
Incompatibility 19.8%
Alcohol/Drugs (either self or partner) 11.3%
Violence 9.6%
What strikes me are the similarities between the two sides; they are much more alike than they are different. And, despite the common perceptions, sexual incompatibility only accounted for
According to the research, men are more likely (25.8%) than women (19.2%) to feel that the divorce was not fair. Much of the perception of fairness has to do with the allocation of resources and subsequent financial status. The statistics regarding the financial implications of divorce for men and women are quite interesting. According to the Pew Charitable Trust 2012 Fact Sheet, almost half of women experience a substantial decline in income after a divorce, down from 63 percent in the 1970's. About half of men also suffer from an income decline, but this has increased from 30 percent in the last 40 years. These statistics show that the negative financial implications from divorce have become more equitable in recent years, and that financial hardship is faced almost equally by men and women, although their perceptions may differ due to the relative changes.
Equity has also begun to seep into the courts. According to a 2012 Reuters report, almost half of divorce attorneys have seen an increase in women paying child support and/or alimony. This is in line with women garnering greater earning power and more men taking on the task of child care. Our relationships are no longer delineated by gender and our court rulings should reflect that reality.
Divorce may feel like a battle between you and your ex, but there is no reason to turn it into a war between men and women. Divorce hurts us all and the statistics can only hint at the heartbreak buried beneath the surface. There are differences in the experience, but the similarities are much more profound. We all face the loss of a partner. We all struggle with trying to make sense of a new reality. We all have to work to understand our own part in the demise of the union. We all hurt and we all can heal. So instead of signing up for the war against the opposite gender, perhaps we can learn from our shared experiences and work on healing together instead of being angry alone.
Follow Lisa Arends on Twitter: www.twitter.com/stilllearning2b
Source: www.huffingtonpost.com
Your view
Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.