I complete,
finally the MUSE has released me, this very important series with some clippings that I have gathered from my daily reading. They relate to my subject and add insight to the point I am trying to get across.
Here is an excerpt from an article by
Michael Kranish, in
The Boston Sunday Globe, dated 8/26/01 -
THE PRICE OF BREAKING UP A MARRIAGE -"Every month, divorcee Candi Wagner receives a most unusual check in the mail. Along with the child support sent by her ex-husband is a check for $540 from her husband's girlfriend - the woman who, a Utah court ruled, caused the "alienation of affection" that ended Wagner's marriage.Similarly, a North Carolina jury in May awarded a man $1.4 million to be paid by his ex-wife's lover, an award so extraordinary that the Legislature there is debating whether to drop the law or encourage its wider use. And just a few weeks ago, in what may be a first, a North Carolina woman sued her husband's alleged gay lover, saying that the "other man" had broken up her marriage.
"This issue is bigger than my life," says Wagner, a former Boston University student who now lives in Salt Lake City. "I would like people to think about what interfering in a marriage can do. There can be consequences. There is a whole trail of pain and hurt."
These unusual alienation of affection cases, based on a law that goes back 200 years, could be viewed as a modern variation on "The Scarlett Letter," Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel about an adultress in 17th-century New England who is forced to wear the red letter "A" and bear the townspeople's ridicule and scorn. The penalty today is measured in dollars."
The editor of Dell Horoscope Magazine, Ronnie Grishman, in her "Letter from the Editor" piece, in the October/2001 issue has this to say:
Dear Readers,
I'm getting a lot of mail from people who feel besieged under the current transits, most notably the mutable sign opposition.. To those and others, I present the following story:Once upon a time a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and she didn't know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed.
Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second, and ground coffee beans in the third. He let them sit and boil without saying a word to his daughter. The daughter moaned and impatiently waited. After twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes and the eggs out and placed them each in a bowl. He ladled the coffee and placed it in a cup. He asked, "Daughter what do you see?" Potatoes, eggs, and coffee," she hastily replied. "Look closer," he said, "and touch the potatoes." She did and noted that they were soft. He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg. Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face. "Father, what does this mean?"
