After many decades of winning the war on death, American women are now losing their lifespan gains over men. Especially in the Deep South and in rural counties, American women in their early 70s are now dropping off at a terrifying rate — 70 should be long enough for anyone, but a girl child born today has an expected lifespan of 81 years, while boy children born today have the male disadvantage of a 76-year lifespan.

The question is why women are losing this advantage, if living longer can even be considered an advantage, especially in the Deep South or America’s Heartland or the rural Western states.

According to Fox News, experts cannot explain the “disturbing trend.” Dr. Christopher Murray, who led a similar study a couple of years ago, blamed smoking, abuse of Oxycontin and other drugs, and the fact that fewer women in the South received a high school diploma for the decline in that region of the country. He also speculated that the healthier women were migrating out of rural areas.

But there is another theory — not one backed by research or science or statistics or smoking rates for women in the South and rural areas, but by God’s plan for our lives.

“Women are not getting married,” says someone from a group called Concerned Women of America. “They are under far more stress than they used to be under, and the lifestyle that is so typical today — that is godless and churchless and faithless — is particularly hard on women.”

Once God is invited back to the South, perhaps women there can go back to burying their husbands and enjoying the customary five years of peace and joy before the black hole of death.

Photo by AmbroPhoto via Shutterstock.

by A Newspaperman

From time to time, The Awl offers its space to everyday citizens with something to say.

I am a newspaperman. Before my freelancing days, my business card had the name of my paper, and under that it said my own name, and then: “Staff Writer.” These days, I’m barely getting by as a freelancer, and my business card has a little graphic of a quill by my name.

I often think about how different the media landscape would be if newspapers had invested in killing off the “Web content” people once they became a clear danger to journalism.

Assassination is a nasty business, and I am against it. Still, you don’t hear anyone crying over killed tumor cells when a patient is treated for cancer. Instead, people say “Thanks” to the doctors. Perhaps we would be saying “Thanks” to the newspaper publishers who were tough enough to confront a threat that would eventually destroy our industry.

As we hear of yet another newspaper closure this week, it’s hard not to think about where journalism would be if all these blogging pioneers and online entrepreneurs had been painlessly poisoned or strangled before readers and advertisers were bamboozled into thinking digital was the next big thing. I have done some research and it appears that the first of these “newspaper killers” appeared in the wake of 9/11. (Coincidence?)

We were all fed a lot of false hopes when all this started, 10 years ago. A consultant came to our newsroom and told us how exciting it would be to use digital tools. We could even search for court records online, right from our desks! Of course the courthouse in my mid-sized market did not have a website until after the paper itself went out of business in 2009.

What did occur is that we were all asked to write more articles for the same money. I always had good productivity and averaged three or four articles per week, plus sometimes a feature for the Sunday paper. But once we entered the digital age, I was also expected to do blogs each weekday.

“Just some light thoughts, a little something extra,” the new website editor told us. Yes, the new website editor was the age of my daughter in college, but being a journalist means keeping an open mind. I tried to dash off some quick thoughts for the daily blogs. And then they complained that it did not have content for Google editors to put on their website.

I asked the website editor, “Am I working for Google or for the Tri-City Herald?”

He just laughed and said I didn’t understand. Well, I understand now: All of these people should have been killed a long time ago. The chain that owned my paper had a double-digit profit margin in the 1990s. There are a lot of unemployed military veterans, mostly from Afghanistan and Iraq, and these folks really don’t know how to do much more than kill people. Why did we not quietly organize these veterans to save our papers and the communities?

Why, today I found an article in the paper saying that GroupOn, a successful coupon service that allows people to print out newspaper-style coupons, would save our local papers. The headline was, “GroupOn: Can It Save Journalism?” I think we can all agree it did not save journalism.

Now I hear from my daughter that there are other new websites supposedly made to save journalism. She showed me one where she applied for an internship. It is all “buzz this” and “buzz that” with photographs of diarrhea accidents and hurt animals. Who is reading this garbage? Certainly not anyone looking for news on the town council or whether that new Multi Purpose Room at the middle school is ever going to be completed. Another thing is I cannot even find the advertisements on these new websites. They are all mixed up, so a “news story” is a display ad, but the display ad is not about the product. The pictures are nearly identical whether it is an ad or editorial: mostly singers with their cleavage in your face.

The newspaper in Boston may have only been a free weekly, but at this point all papers are worth saving. The problem is that we’re too late. Now the website consultants are a whole industry unto themselves. But this would not be the case had they been quietly taken out a decade ago.

The job of a journalist is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. It is too bad we let our guard down and let these metrosexuals stomp all over the heart of our democracy.

Photo by Gualtiero Boffi via Shutterstock.

As an alcoholic I have always had a deep-seated hatred of St. Patrick’s Day, trivializing as it does the hard work that I and so many of my fellow dipsomaniacs have put in over the years to slake our insatiable thirst no matter what toll it takes on employment, relationships or physical and mental health. As a humanist I similarly despise it, since it furthers the terrible ethnic stereotype that the Irish are the worst kind of drunks — rowdy Sullys and sullen Mollys who can’t hold their liquor, keep their voices down or vomit in anything approaching proximity to a toilet or washbasin — when in fact they are some of the most proficient inebriates I have ever had the pleasure to know. If you’re ever desperate for a drink at an odd time of day in an unlikely location, ask the nearest Irishman where you can go for a quick slug; if he doesn’t offer you a sip from the magical flask that all Irish people manage to keep well-hidden on their persons at all times he will at minimum point you in the right direction and tell you who to ask for when you get there. That said, as a man grows older he comes to a place where he realizes that the world will not only refuse to accept his wise counsel but will actively seek ways to thwart such knowledge. So I get it: a lot of you are going to get absolutely plastered on Sunday. Watch this important film above on the effects of alcohol, because if you’re someone who needs this “holiday” as an excuse to get tanked you clearly don’t know the first thing about drinking, and go forth in peace. Just try and keep the puke near the gutter, okay? Thanks.

“Cry Me a River is one of the best breakup songs in pre-Adele pop culture history.”

“They don’t even agree on how they met. In Currie’s version, he was working the book table at one of [Anne] Carson’s readings in Ann Arbor when, during the reception — while everyone else was enjoying the feast (it featured a shrimp volcano) — Carson brought him a plate of food. ‘I have no memory of this,’ Carson said. In her version, Currie was suddenly just hanging around. ‘There you were, and then you were there more.’”

The cover to Alabama rapper Yelawolf’s new mixtape exemplifies two schools of artwork that we’ve investigated here at The Awl. 1) The prominent-sunglasses album cover and 2) Rappers with American flags. But, oddly, the above image is reminiscent of nothing so much as traditionalist troubadour Leon Redbone.

Here is Yelawolf’s new video.

Here is Leon Redbone performing on “The Tonight Show” in 1985.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oevAnuzMUMg

Same deal.

“Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman, a longtime opponent of same-sex marriage, said on Friday he now believes gays have a right to marry after learning two years ago that his son is gay.”
 — If every elected Republican with gay family or staff makes Rob Portman’s journey, the supposedly partisan issue of people getting fair access to the rights and financial advantages of marriage would go away pretty quickly, wouldn’t it?

The man born Sylvester Stewart turns 70 today. Check out some of the clips from when he co-hosted “The Mike Douglas Show” for a semi-amazing look back at what America was at a certain point in time.

COMPANY THAT HAS CONSISTENTLY BEEN DISASTROUS WITH NAMING UPSET THAT ITS TV STATION NY1 DOES NOT COMMUNICATE THAT TV STATION’S EXCLUSIVITY TO DOOMED CABLE PROVIDER TIME WARNER, PLANS TO RUIN STATION BY WAY OF REBRANDING.

Also, later, HBO will be renamed Home Bewkes Office.

Sweet lord, it’s a preview for the forthcoming Alan Partridge movie! I may have to conquer my fear of being stabbed and actually fly to Britain just so I can see this. Okay, I will probably just hold off until it makes it over here, but I don’t wanna wait. I mean, who knows how long that’s going to take? I don’t have a lot of time left. [Via]