Thursday, June 3, 2010Opinion

The Brownsville States-Graphic

page A4

Calvin's Corner

By Calvin Carter, Staff Writer

By 28th Judicial District Circuit Court Judge Clayburn Peeples

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BrownsvilleSTATES-GRAPHICSTATES-GRAPHIC

Scott Whaley,Editor & Publisher

Calvin Carter,Rebecca GrayStaff Writer

Sara Clark,Josh AndersonGraphic Design

Terry ThompsonSales Manager

Leticia OrozcoReceptionist

Vicky Fawcett,Office Manager

Scott Whaley,Editor & Publisher

Vicky Fawcett,Offi ce Manager

Terry ThompsonSales Manager

Ceree Peace PostonReceptionist

Calvin Carter,Staff Writer

Sara Clark,Graphic Design

Josh AndersonGraphic Design

Julie Pickard,Staff Writer

It’s a hazy afternoon, the type of humid atmo-sphere where the clothes stick to your body, and hiding under a blanket in bed creates your own personal oven.

While the morning of Memorial Day found me in Brownsville covering the VFW’s annual pro-gram at the courthouse, the late afternoon had me back home, in my room, lost somewhere between sleeping and daydream-ing.

Outside of my room, I could hear my parents watching TV in the living room, laughing togeth-er, and joking with one another as couples do.

My folks have been together for as long as I’ve been on this planet.

To some people, twen-ty plus years doesn’t seem like a big deal. For most however, in this day and age, it’s a miracle.

And it becomes much more impressive con-sidering today’s high divorce/separation rate. On Tuesday, former vice president and presiden-tial hopeful, Al Gore and his wife Tipper, announced their separa-tion from each other.

After 40 years of mar-riage, the two are throw-ing in the towel. Again it’s not that surprising. In fact, what is sur-prising is that this is a marriage ending in the political world without the humiliating accusa-tion of infidelity. Well, it hasn’t been brought to light yet, anyways.

When a divorce takes place, nobody, at least it seems to me, from my generation or below is really that shocked. It’s not a big deal. Socially we’ve become so numb

to the point, that at best all you’ll get from us is an apathetic “so?”

Hard to believe that didn’t use to be the case.

It makes one wonder, if my generation views longevity differently, than say my parents when it comes to mar-riage?

In other words, instead of “Till death do us part,” do we believe in “till the divorce papers are signed?”

Maybe it has to do with this “instant” age we live in, an era where a minute is too long, and five is a lifetime. If we aren’t instantly receiving gratification, then what’s the point? Why subject yourself to misery or hardship any longer than what we feel we need.

After all, there other fish in the sea right? What’s more is that there are so many dif-ferent ways to catch the attention of other fish, even while on the hook of another. I mean a hook-up—and you can take that to mean how-ever you want—is only a shady text message away for some people.

Part of me does not want to accept that grim fate on marriages. Part of me, although stubborn, believes that you should do everything to work you hardships out. Part of me believes that as long as one remembers why they loved that person in the first place, that’s kind of the magic glue that you need to make things work. Another part of me thinks that’s a very stupid and naïve thing to say. And yet another part of me is wonder-ing who would win in a fight between Anderson

the Spider Silva and Spiderman. The UFC could market the fight as Spider versus Spider: Web of Pain.

But I digress.I can’t write this col-

umn and continue to just see one side of it. I mean, let’s face it, there are some relationships that just do not work. And in some cases—on the extreme spectrum of things—a separation or divorce is better. Ten years ago it would have been unheard of for those words to escape my mouth.

Ten years later and it’s a miracle that I even still believe in the concept of a stable and loving mar-riage.

I’ve never been mar-ried. I’ve got friends that have made that leap. And while it seemed like a dream of mine, when I was younger, it’s becom-ing less of a priority, like-ly tangible situation that will happen to me any-time soon. I think part of it is because I’m actu-ally enjoying parts of my bachelorhood. The other probably stems from fear of shortly filing divorce papers.

When this column comes out, most, and by that I mean my co-work-ers, will probably remind me of my youth, and lack of actual experience in a marriage. And they’re right. What the heck do I know?

Can’t talk the talk unless I’ve walked it right? What right do I have talk about it?

Well in that case, back to that Silva fight.

See I think that Silva would come in with a Muy Thai knee and….

My six-year-old daughter has been lis-tening to an audio book version of Tom Sawyer that we picked up off a remainder rack some-where, and her favorite part is the graveyard scene where Tom and Huck go to try to cure warts. You probably remember it. Huck has told Tom that the way to get rid of warts is to take a dead cat to a grave-yard, in the light of a full moon, swing the cat over the grave of an evil man, at midnight, and repeat the words, “Devil follow corpse, cat fol-low devil, warts follow cat, I’m done with ye!” When the boys get to the graveyard, however, they witness a murder in the moonlight.

You don’t usually see those two words togeth-er in the same sentence. The term “moonlight” usually brings up softer, more romantic images. It’s a beautiful word, and while there may be words lovelier than the word moonlight, there aren’t many. True, there are times when moonlight, as a subject, is written or spoken about nega-tively, as in when people talk about the full moon causing violent acts, but when people use the word “moonlight”, they are usually referring to something positive, even romantic. Moonlight has featured prominently in songs, books and stories since the days when the moon was the only cal-endar man had.

The moon has always commanded atten-tion. Even before it was understood that it affect-ed the rising and fall-ing of the ocean tides, humans attached great, great importance to the movement of the moon across the sky, and near-ly every society on earth has named the various full moons of the year.

Some societies have even deified the moon. The ancient Mayans, for example, believed the moon was a goddess who brought floods and storms to the earth. The Greeks had a moon god-

dess, as did the Romans. The Egyptians had a moon god. Almost every society, throughout his-tory, has paid very close attention to the travels of the moon across the sky, and even those who didn’t elevate it to god-like status, attributed all sorts of things to it, believing it influenced all sorts of human and ani-mal behavior.

In Germany, in the 1500’s, for example, were-wolf myths sprang up. Thanks to Hollywood, they still persist, so we all know about werewolves and full moons. But turn-ing men into werewolves and inspiring witches to ride are not the only bad things the moon is thought to do. All sorts of moon superstitions still exist. Some think it bad luck to view the moon through a window pane. Sleeping in direct moon-light was once thought to cause lunacy. Some say it is unlucky to point at the moon.

Still others associ-ate the moon with good luck. Marrying your true love during a full moon is supposed to bring both good luck and good for-tune. A child born during the full moon is supposed to become especially suc-cessful, strong and lucky.

Then there’s the full moon effect that may or may not exist. All sorts of people believe it does, even today. The full moon is believed, by many peo-ple, to be linked to higher crime and suicide rates, mental illness, disasters, accidents, fertility and birthrates, among other things. Some people even think casino payout rates are even influenced by the moon’s phase. Nurses and physicians often say they can tell when the moon is full by their increased patient load during such times. In one study, 80% of emergency room nurses said that is true.

Others say more babies are born during full moons. An older nurse actually told me that once. She said she was basing her statement on 20 years of helping to

deliver babies.So I guess that settles

that.But wait; many, many

people have tried to prove some link between aberrant behavior and full moons, and they just can’t do it. Virtually every one of the more than 100 studies that have been done come to the con-clusion that lunar effects have practically no effect on human behavior.

So why do people think they do? Well, one reason is that Hollywood and literature tell us it is true in story after story. Newspaper report-ers love full moon story aspects, so they play up the full moon angle when it is present. Never mind what the scien-tific studies show. One good anecdote is more interesting to the reading public than ten scientific studies.

Add to that the number of times people hear these lunar myths by police officers, nurses, social workers and others then a phenomenon known as communal reinforcement comes into play. Then people begin to be selec-tive about the data they pay attention to in the future. If a police offi-cer, for example, believes the full moon increases crime rates, he or she will pay more attention to incidents during full moons, but be inatten-tive to the moon’s phase when incidents occur at other times. Memories are notoriously selective, and maybe even dis-torted, and pretty soon you’ve got “all the proof I need.”

But the rest of us, sci-ence tells us, should look at such stories with skep-tical eyes.

But that’s no fun. It’s much more interesting to listen to the story being told by the cop on the other side of the coffee cup about the crazy night he had during the last full moon, so that’s what we do.

And there are plenty of those stories, because these days, the moon is always full.

Moonshine

Till the papers say we’re through