Ah, The Irony- - - -Oral Robert's Grandson 'Comes Out'!

Late televangelist also had son who committed suicide after coming out, but Dallas man takes different path

GAY PROGENY | Randy Potts, left, attended the funeral of his grandfather, Oral Roberts, right, but wasn’t invited to sit with family.

Randy Roberts Potts grew up like many in this area. Raised in an evangelical family, he married at 20 and had three children.

But at 30, he came out as gay and moved to Dallas.
Today, few in his family speak to him. But last year he summoned the courage to take his children to visit his grandfather — Tulsa evangelist Oral Roberts.

Roberts, who died last year, had four children: Potts’ mother, a Tulsa attorney; her sister, who died in a plane crash with her husband in 1977; Ronnie Roberts, who committed suicide in 1982; and Richard Roberts, who became president of Oral Roberts University in 1993 but resigned in 2007 after being accused of using school funds for personal and political purposes.

Potts identifies most closely with his deceased uncle, Ronnie. They look alike. They were both teachers. They married, had children and divorced at about the same age.
“We married very similar women, too,” Potts said.

They were also about the same age when they came out. But there is a major difference between the two.
Ronnie came out as gay to the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church, in the early 1980s. Six months later, Ronnie Roberts committed suicide.
Potts, on the other hand, learned to embrace his identity.

Potts said he believes people need to take responsibility for their own lives. If their families aren’t supportive, they need to surround themselves with people who are. That is what made the difference for him.
But the times were different as well, for Potts and his uncle.

“By the time I was in my late 20s, we had ‘Will & Grace,’” Potts said. “In 1982 in Tulsa, there were no role models.”
Although it was pretty common knowledge in the LGBT community that Oral Roberts had a gay son, in the family and at church it was a big secret. Potts said he didn’t know himself until fairly recently.
“In the gay community people knew that,” he said. “In my family it was utter heresy that I mentioned it.”
He said the “the act of saying it publicly” has estranged most of his family from him.
Since he came out, Potts said only two people in his family even talk to him — his brother and a distant cousin.

Potts met his wife at age 18. They married two years later and had three children.
Ten years after they married, he and his wife divorced. When she got a new job in Dallas, he moved here to be near his children. They have joint custody.

His estrangement from his family began much earlier.
He compared his mother to Sarah Palin.

“She reminds me a lot of my mother,” he said of Palin. “I hear my mother in her, the same sort of mindset.”
Potts said his relationship with his mother reflected her relationship with her father.
Last year, he decided to take his children to meet their great-grandfather, a man he described as very cold.
“I was terrified of him as a kid,” Potts said.

He recalled that as he was growing up, his grandfather never remembered his name or the names of any of Potts’ cousins.

But he was surprised during this last visit.
“He wanted to be the grandfatherly type in that visit,” Potts said. “It was nice that he was play-acting for my kids.”

When he arrived, he was surprised that Roberts had learned the names of each his great-grandchildren, and he gave each of the children a $20 bill and an autographed copy of one of his books.

“That’s his legacy, his life’s work,” Potts said, saying he thinks his grandfather believed the book would mean something to his great-grandchildren when they were older.

Despite Roberts’ attitude toward his great-grandchildren, Potts said he knows it must have been difficult for the evangelist to see Potts himself. “I know I must have reminded him of Ronnie,” he said. “I was the same age as Ronnie when he died. I know that ran through his head several times when he looked at me.
“He was very isolated and alone,” he said. “He was always too busy for friends. So here he is 91. He lost his wife in 2005.”

Potts’ grandmother was his closest relative. He described her as kind and loving. She died the year he came out.

For her funeral, he was not allowed in the family tent. Instead, he stood outside to hold one of the tent poles.
When his grandfather died last December at the age of 91, Potts decided to attend the funeral. but he was not invited to sit with the family.

But Potts lives a happy life in Dallas. He works several jobs to make ends meet. He’s doing some writing on several subjects. He said he’s heard little from his family about a recent an article published by This Land, an Oklahoma periodical, about his family.
He has an agent and hopes to publish a book out about the same subject.

http://www.dallasvoice.com/oral-roberts%E2%80%99-gay-grandson-speaks-out-1032465.html

At The Movies----How Rude Are The People Around You???

One of the first W.C. Fields movies I saw was an early 1930s Paramount all-star film called "If I Had a Million." Given a cool million to spend as he wishes, Fields uses the money to buy a fleet of jalopies allowing him to careen around Los Angeles, hunting down pernicious road hogs. Whenever Fields sees someone hogging the road, he rams them with one of his cars, hops into the next waiting car in his fleet and heads off in search of a new victim.

I am often reminded of the grand old comic when I'm in a multiplex these days. I think of myself as a generally peaceful citizen, but it seems as if almost every time I go out to the movies I find myself spoiling for a fight with some rude knucklehead who's texting or talking during a movie. I usually just bark, "Put the phone away!" but it's hard to resist the temptation to knock some sense into them, just as Fields did to his road hogs.

Apparently I am not alone. Matt Singer at IFC News says that going to the movies, far from being a refuge from the outside world, is now an even more stressful experience than real life. He is asking people to sign a petition designed to improve the moviegoing experience. He suggests that in addition to shutting their mouths mouth and silencing their cellphones, people should never bring a baby to an R-rated movie, stop throwing their garbage on the theater floor and never, ever, bring loud, stinky food to the theater, suggesting that people who arrive at the multiplex with Chinese takeout in crackly plastic containers "should receive one warning. A second violation gets you a lifetime ban." 

I'm on board with Singer's proposal, but it doesn't really deal with the prickly issue of new technology -- especially the proliferation of texting in the middle of movies. I've found that at least in my family, there is a dramatic generation gap on the texting question. My 13-year-old son considers it totally acceptable to stay in touch with pals during a movie while I find it loathsome and obnoxious, especially to everyone in the vicinity of the glowing light of a cellphone.

I tried explaining to my kid that texting was also insulting to the filmmakers, who have every reason to expect that the audience might actually give their undivided attention to their work. But he wasn't buying that, arguing that if the audience pays good money they should be able to make their own decisions about how much attention a film merits, which I'm afraid is a sign of exactly what happens to your cinematic values when you've grown up watching Michael Bay movies.

If anyone has a strong opinion on this issue I'd like to hear it. Personally, I'd be happy to have theater owners eject anyone guilty of rampant texting, at least unless they can prove that they've been in necessary contact with a baby sitter or an elderly relative. Am I guilty of being too much of a multiplex vigilante? Or would you, too, like a little more peace and quiet when you watch a movie, regardless of how much it might infringe on every American's right to big-screen free speech?

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2011/08/movie-theater-manners-etiquette-film-rules-petition-texting.html

Rep. Maxine Waters: 'The tea party can go straight to hell'

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) came out swinging against Republicans in Congress on Saturday as she addressed the unemployed during a forum in Inglewood.

The event occurred a day after new statistics were released showing that California's jobless rate last month went up to 12%, from 11.8%.  California now has the second-highest rate of unemployment in the nation, trailing only Nevada at 12.9%, and its jobless rate is well above the U.S. average of 9.1%.

Waters vowed to push Congress to focus on creating more jobs. "I'm not afraid of anybody," said Waters. "This is a tough game. You can't be intimidated. You can't be frightened. And as far as I'm concerned, the 'tea party' can go straight to hell."

More than 1,000 people attended "Kitchen Table Summit," which was designed to give the jobless an opportunity to vent to elected officials and share their struggles about finding a job.

KABC-TV quoted speakers talking about living without medical insurance and surviving paycheck to paycheck.

"Thank God I am healthy because a medical illness would bankrupt me," said Regina Davis of Inglewood.

Congresswomen Laura Richardson and Karen Bass also attended. Several people urged the representatives to push for a national jobs program.

According to the Employment Development Department, California employers added just 4,500 new jobs last month, a steep drop from the revised 30,400 jobs added in June.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/tea-party-maxine-waters-hell.html

This 'Silent Disco' Is Deafening!

Instead of relying on the massive speaker systems found at most clubs, this newish trend has partygoers donning wireless headphones to hear a live DJ broadcast.

Revellers with headphones dance in a silent disco area on third day of the Open'er Festival 2011 in Gdynia, Poland, 02 July 2011. Each festivalgoer received a pair of wireless headphones in order to be able to listen to music on two separate channels.

On a Saturday evening in June, the dance floor at Santa Monica's Central Social Aid & Pleasure Club was packed with patrons enthusiastically dancing, singing and doing call-and-response with the DJ. It's a scene that could have been unfolding on umpteen dance floors across the city, but in this case, something very different was going on.

The cool-kid crowd was moving and grooving to silence. Or so it seemed.

Actually, the revelers were taking part in a phenomenon known as "silent disco," a dance party where the booming music is both private and shared. Instead of getting their audio fix from the massive speakers found at most dance clubs, partygoers donned custom wireless headphones to tune in to a live DJ broadcast.

The term silent disco was coined in 2005 at the U.K.'s Glastonbury Festival, where headphones were used to share music en masse without violating local noise restrictions. Robbie "Motion Potion" Kowal, a San Francisco-based DJ, was the first to try the concept in the U.S. at Tennessee's Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in 2006. Since then, he's invested in his own set of 1,000-plus headphones and has taken silent disco on the road to clubs, festivals and public spaces where noise ordinances would otherwise make a dance party impossible.

Friday night will be his third time bringing silent disco to Central since the club opened to the public last September.

"It's becoming one of our signature parties," said Rory Lovett, one of Central's co-owners. Due to its growing popularity, he said, Central has decided to make it a monthly event second Saturdays starting in December.

According to Kowal, one of the things that makes silent disco such a crowd-pleaser is the "voyeuristic passerby factor." In previous months, the party at Central has spilled out onto 14th Street. People who stumble upon it "can't even conceptualize what the heck is going on because they see people dancing around and they don't hear anything," he said.

Kowal thinks the "unintentional comedy factor," as he put it, is equally compelling. "You see people trying to sing along and not knowing the words ... or pretending to know the words so their friends think that they [do]," he said. "So much of club culture now is so over-serious.... This has a way of bringing the smiles and laughter back."

Stephanie Tucker of Hollywood, who in June was attending her second silent disco night at Central, said that "on a normal dance floor, everyone stays in their little circles." But at silent disco, she's experienced more interaction among strangers. "It's almost like because everybody has got the headphones on that we all have something in common."

The headphone concept encourages more conversation too. Dancers can take their headsets off (or turn down the volume) at will to chat with someone, and the lack of a sound system means they can actually hear one another — an option, well, unheard of in conventional clubs. "It's not this inescapable pounding DJ set," said Lovett.

Those tuning in to Kowal's broadcast will hear his signature blend of rare groove and album rock reimagined as dance mixes — in June, his "Good Vibrations" mix included the Beach Boys and Marky Mark. Friday night he'll be joined on the decks by Los Angeles-based DJ Quickie Mart.

Kowal will also be bringing silent disco to the sprawling Sunset Strip Music Festival on Saturday. See the website for details as they emerge: http://www.sunsetstripmusicfestival.com.

Silent disco "favors more adventurous music," said Kowal. Participants are "really listening ... because you put those headphones on and it goes directly from the DJ's brain into yours."

http://www.latimes.com/theguide/bars-and-clubs/la-et-night-disco19-20110819,0,2697314.story

More People Becoming Vegans----Including Bill Clinton

Former President Bill Clinton is speaking out about his plant-based, heart-healthy diet, saying that he believes the vegan regimen is helping to reverse the damage to his heart and blood vessels caused by cardiovascular disease.

Former President Bill Clinton during a recent visit to Haiti. Clinton says that his vegan diet is improving his cardiovascular health.

"It's turning a ship around before it hits the iceberg, but I think we're beginning to turn it around," he told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

It's not the first time Clinton has changed his famously Krispy Kreme-oriented eating habits to improve his health. When the former president had a quadruple bypass in 2004, he lowered the cholesterol in his diet.  But when doctors last year had to implant two stents to open one of the veins from that surgery, the president took matters further and began following the advice of Dr. Dean Ornish, the diet guru who helped spark the notion of turning to vegetarianism to reverse coronary heart disease with the publication of this study (subscription required) in the Lancet in 1990, and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., who runs the cardiovascular prevention and reversal program at the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute, and went vegan -- cutting out meat, dairy, eggs and most oils.

News of his new diet started trickling out after daughter Chelsea Clinton's July 31 wedding, an event at which guests dined on vegan dishes and a gluten-free cake, and at which Clinton appeared slim and healthy.  By September, a flurry of reports had delved into the president's new eating habits, some questioning how the 64-year-old really felt about giving up meat for protein shakes and almond milk ("I like the vegetables, the fruits, the beans, the stuff I eat now," he tells Gupta now.) In December 2010, PETA named Clinton its Person of the Year, estimating that his diet shift spared the lives of 200 animals a year.

Vegan diets aren't always healthy.  As Los Angeles Times reporter Jeannine Stein found last year when she peeked in the pantry of one vegan couple, cutting out meat and dairy can leave a lot of room for nutrient-poor choices like potato chips and Taco Bell burritos.  But the right kind of veganism, according to Clinton, can promote good health.  "All my blood tests are good, and my vital signs are good, and I feel good, and I also have, believe it or not, more energy," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-bill-clinton-vegan-20110818,0,5976547.story

A 9 Year Old Predicts His Own Death, And Then Dies

Dr. Gregg and Kathryn Korbon's son Brian was almost 9 years old when he told his parents he wouldn't make it to his "double digits."

"That's when I got worried," said Kathryn, who took her son to see a therapist. Kathryn and Gregg recounted Brian's strange premonition at StoryCorps in Charlottesville, Va. 

Brian hadn't wanted a birthday party when he turned 9; but in the next several months, he decided he wanted a party after all.

Then one day, Kathryn came home to find Brian pulling a red wagon down the driveway, filled with his toys and camping gear.

"I'm ready to go on my trip," the boy said.

Kathryn replied, "Brian, I'll be so sad if you leave."

"Mom, I have to go."

His mother explained that Brian couldn't leave because of his upcoming party; he relented.

But before the celebration — planned for May 8, 1993 — Brian wrote letters to some of his friends, and put a sign on his door that read, "Brian's on a trip. Don't worry about me."

Brian played in a Little League game after the party. Though he was the smallest player on the team and normally was afraid of the ball, his father recalls that during that game, Brian was fearless.

He was walked in his first at-bat. The next batter hit a triple — Brian ran the bases, charging across home plate.

"He was the happiest little boy you ever saw. He gave me a high-five and went into the dugout," Gregg recalls, "and then he collapsed."

A Little League field in Charlottesville, Va., is named after Brian C. Korbon.

Before his death in 1993, Brian posted this sign to his bedroom door.

When his coach brought Brian out of the dugout, Gregg tried to revive him. "I'm an anesthesiologist. That's what I do, is resuscitate people," he said.

"And something inside told me he wasn't coming back."

Soon after leaving the hospital, Kathryn realized her son had somehow known what would happen to him.

"That's what he was trying to tell us all that time," she said.

"Yeah, but it wasn't in my belief system that something like that could happen," Gregg replied.

Gregg returned to the field after Brian's death, to get his car. On a beautiful spring day, he watched another game of Little Leaguers.

"All of a sudden, everything got very clear," Gregg recalls. "And I had this sense that if I could bring Brian back, it would be for me, not for him — that he had finished. Any unfinished business was just mine."

Brian was determined to have died of heart failure. After his death, the ballpark where he had played that day was renovated and renamed the Brian C. Korbon Field.

A plaque was placed at the site:

On May 8, 1993, Brian Korbon died suddenly in the south dugout after scoring the first run of his Little League career. This ball field is dedicated to his wisdom, faith and courage. May those who play here share Brian's sense of fair play and joy of life, and those who cheer them find a greater sense of community and love for their children.

Produced for Morning Edition by Michael Garofalo with Vanara Taing. Recorded in partnership with WMRA and WVTF.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120580047

Bishop in Missouri Waited Months to Report Priest

In the annals of the sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, most of the cases that have come to light happened years before to children and teenagers who have long since grown into adults.

Bishop Robert Finn took over the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri in 2005. 

But a painfully fresh case is devastating Catholics in Kansas City, Mo., where a priest, who was arrested in May, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of taking indecent photographs of young girls, most recently during an Easter egg hunt just four months ago. 

Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph has acknowledged that he knew of the existence of photographs last December but did not turn them over to the police until May. 

A civil lawsuit filed last week claims that during those five months, the priest, the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, attended children’s birthday parties, spent weekends in the homes of parish families, hosted the Easter egg hunt and presided, with the bishop’s permission, at a girl’s First Communion. 

“All these parishioners just feel so betrayed, because we knew nothing,” said Thu Meng, whose daughter attended the preschool in Father Ratigan’s last parish. “And we were welcoming this guy into our homes, asking him to come bless this or that. They saw all these signs, and they didn’t do anything.”

The case has generated fury at a bishop who was already a polarizing figure in his diocese, and there are widespread calls for him to resign or even to be prosecuted. Parishioners started a Facebook page called “Bishop Finn Must Go” and are circulating a petition. An editorial in The Kansas City Star in June calling for the bishop to step down concluded that prosecutors must “actively pursue all relevant criminal charges” against everyone involved. 

Stoking much of the anger is the fact that only three years ago, Bishop Finn settled lawsuits with 47 plaintiffs in sexual abuse cases for $10 million and agreed to a long list of preventive measures, among them to immediately report anyone suspected of being a pedophile to law enforcement authorities. 

Michael Hunter, an abuse victim who was part of that settlement and is now the president of the Kansas City chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said: “There were 19 nonmonetary agreements that the diocese signed on to, and they were things like reporting immediately to the police. And they didn’t do it. That’s really what sickens us as much as the abuse.” 

The bishop has apologized and released a “five-point plan” that he described as “sweeping changes.” He hired an ombudsman to field reports of suspicious behavior and appointed an investigator to conduct an independent review of the events and diocesan policies. The investigator’s report is taking longer than expected and is now due in late August or early September, said Rebecca Summers, director of communications in the diocese. 

The bishop also replaced the vicar general involved in the case, Msgr. Robert Murphy, after he was accused of propositioning a young man in 1984. The diocese has delayed a capital fund-raising campaign on the advice of its priests, a move first reported by The National Catholic Reporter.

Bishop Finn, who was appointed in 2005, alienated many of his priests and parishioners, and won praise from others, when he remade the diocese to conform with his traditionalist theological views. He is one of few bishops affiliated with the conservative movement Opus Dei.

He canceled a model program to train Catholic laypeople to be leaders and hired more staff members to recruit candidates for the priesthood. He cut the budget of the Office of Peace and Justice, which focused on poverty and human rights, and created a new Respect Life office to expand the church’s opposition to abortion and stem cell research. He set up a parish for a group of Catholics who prefer to celebrate the old Tridentine Mass in Latin. 

Father Ratigan, 45, was also an outspoken conservative, according to a profile in The Kansas City Star. He and a class of Catholic school students joined Bishop Finn for the bus ride to the annual March for Life rally in Washington in 2007. 

The diocese was first warned about Father Ratigan’s inappropriate interest in young girls as far back as 2006, according to accusations in the civil lawsuit filed Thursday. But there were also more recent warnings.

In May 2010, the principal of a Catholic elementary school where Father Ratigan worked hand-delivered a letter to the vicar general reporting specific episodes that had raised alarms: the priest put a girl on his lap during a bus ride and allowed children to reach into his pants pockets for candy. When a Brownie troop visited Father Ratigan’s house, a parent reported finding a pair of girl’s panties in a planter, the letter said.

Bishop Finn said at a news conference that he was given a “brief verbal summary” of the letter at the time, but did not read it until a year later. 

In December, a computer technician discovered the photographs on Father Ratigan’s laptop and turned it in to the diocese. The next day, the priest was discovered in his closed garage, his motorcycle running, along with a suicide note apologizing to the children, their families and the church. 

Father Ratigan survived, was taken to a hospital and was then sent to live at a convent in the diocese, where, the lawsuit and the indictment say, he continued to have contact with children.

Parents in the school and parishioners were told only that Father Ratigan had fallen sick from carbon monoxide poisoning. They were stunned when he was arrested in May. 

“My daughter made cards for him,” said one parent who did not want her name used because the police said her daughter might have been a victim. “We prayed for him every single night at dinner. It was just lying to us and a complete cover-up.” 

A federal grand jury last Tuesday charged Father Ratigan with 13 counts of possessing, producing and attempting to produce child pornography. It accused him of taking lewd pictures of the genitalia of five girls ages 2 to 12, sometimes while they slept. If convicted, he would face a minimum of 15 years in prison.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: August 15, 2011

An earlier version of this article incorrectly characterized part of a three-year-old agreement to settle lawsuits in previous sex abuse cases. The settlement, for $10 million, included a list 19 — not 90 — preventive measures, including immediately reporting possible abuse to the police.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/us/15bishop.html?_r=2&hpw

5 Tips for a Happy Domestic Partnership

For many, domestic partnership is the next logical step in the relationship-growth path after the dating stage.

While it can be cohabitating bliss, it can also be a near disaster if you don't learn how to co-exist peacefully under the same roof. The 'little things' may seem small at first, but when repeated on a daily basis, frustrations like dishes in the sink can definitely exacerbate quickly.

Here are a few lessons I've learned (and am still learning) along the way to keep a functioning home and resultantly, a happy relationship.

Money Matters -- This uncomfortable conversation is one of the most important to have to discuss who puts in what, who takes care of bills, etc. There is no one solution -- you have to find what works for you. The system will also need revisiting and adjusting as careers and financial situations change.

Communication -- My friend Sunny recently told me, "You have to learn how to live, love and fight under one roof." When arguing, your first instinct may be to leave the nest and stay elsewhere, but taking off doesn't set a very good precedent in establishing a home with someone. Learning how to argue is important, and this may require laying down some house rules. Learning how to argue in a mature and non-destructive manner is something that usually takes time, since you have two completely different people with different styles and backgrounds. But it's a work in progress and one that hopefully through practice and creation of new habits, gets better with time.

Chores -- Instead of obsessively nagging your partner to do the dishes or make the weekend plans, determine the tasks in which you have a comparative advantage. If you're quick at doing the dishes and actually don't mind it, perhaps that's your task and your partner who loves making plans can be in charge of organizing dinner with the in-laws. Don't take it personally -- just get smarter and more efficient with the division of responsibility.

Staying Attractive --Sure, the courting phase is over, but living together is not a ticket to wear pajamas 24-7, talk in a baby voice or pack on the pounds. If you want the sparks to continue, make an effort in your appearance and hygiene.

Keeping Your Individuality -- Everyone needs his or her personal time. It may feel natural to do everything with your partner, but it's important to still have alone time with your friends and vice versa. Give each other the opportunity to miss each other.

Amy Chan is a relationship columnist. To read more of her blogs, visit www.amyfabulous.com

Face Transplant Patient Doing Well; New Photo Released

Face transplant patient Charla Nash, who was disfigured after being mauled by a 200-pound chimpanzee two years ago, says she is recovering well and is grateful for the reconstructive surgery that is returning her to a fuller life.

Charla Nash underwent a full face transplant after she was attacked by a chimpanzee in February, 2009. (Photo from AP)

In photos released Thursday by Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston, Nash is shown with her new face, still swollen but similar in skin tone to her face prior to the attack. Nash, 57, lost her lips, eyes, nose and hands in the attack. Hands were also transplanted in the 20-hour operation in May. However, complications ensued and the hands were removed.

"Losing the new hands is just a bump in the road of my recovery," Nash said Thursday in a statement release by the hospital. "I believe that one day I'll have two hands to help me live as a blind person with confidence."

The face transplant, the third full face transplant performed in the United States, has been successful thus far.  

"I will now be able to do things I once took for granted. I will be able to smell," she said. "I will be able to eat normally. I will no longer be disfigured. I will have lips and will speak clearly once again. I will be able to kiss and hug loved ones. I am tremendously grateful to the donor and her family."

The transplanted face is not similar to her pre-accident appearance, but it also does not replicate the face of the donor. The underlying facial bones and muscle of the recipient changes the shape of the donor's tissue, according to hospital officials.

The first-ever full face transplant took place last year. The procedure is still considered experimental.

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-face-transplant-20110811,0,2042104.story?track=rss 

80 Years Old & Getting Boob Jobs?!

At age 83, Marie Kolstad has a rich life. She works full time as a property manager and keeps an active social calendar, busying herself with 12 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. 

Marie Kolstad, 83, a widow who lives in Orange County, Calif., underwent a three-hour breast lift with implants.

But one thing needed improvement, she decided: her figure. At her age, she said, “your breasts go in one direction and your brain goes in another.” So on July 22, Ms. Kolstad, a widow who lives in Orange County, Calif., underwent a three-hour breast lift with implants, which costs about $8,000. 

“Physically, I’m in good health, and I just feel like, why not take advantage of it?” said Ms. Kolstad. “My mother lived a long time, and I’m just taking it for granted that that will happen to me. And I want my children to be proud of what I look like.” 

Ms. Kolstad is one of many septuagenarians, octogenarians and even nonagenarians who are burnishing their golden years with help from the plastic surgeon. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, in 2010 there were 84,685 surgical procedures among patients age 65 and older. They included 26,635 face-lifts; 24,783 cosmetic eyelid operations; 6,469 liposuctions; 5,874 breast reductions; 3,875 forehead lifts; 3,339 breast lifts and 2,414 breast augmentations. 

Except for a brief turndown during the recession, those numbers have been rising for years now, and experts say the trend seems likely to accelerate as baby boomers begin to pass age 65. But the increase also has raised concerns about safety and the propriety of performing invasive elective surgery on older patients, who may suffer unintended physical and psychological consequences. 

There are as many reasons for getting plastic surgery as there are older patients, experts say. Some people are living longer and remaining healthier, and they want their physiques to align with their psyches. Some are preening for potential mates and want their feathers to look their freshest. Some are still working or looking for jobs and want to be seen as more youthful contenders. 

And some are simply sick of slackened jowls, jiggly underarms and saggy eyelids. Gilbert Meyer, a retired film producer in Boynton Beach, Fla., who gave his age only as “over 75,” saw Dr. Jacob Steiger, a facial plastic surgeon in Boca Raton, Fla., for an eye and neck lift last year. He spent $8,000.

“I was looking at myself in the mirror and didn’t like what I was starting to see and did something about it,” Mr. Meyer said. “Why not look as good as you can when you can?”

Mary Graham, a 77-year-old restaurant owner in Thomasville, Ga., got a face-lift and breast implants earlier this year. “The only time I go to the doctor is for plastic surgery,” she said. 

Ms. Graham plans to open another restaurant in Tallahassee, Fla., in the fall. “I work seven days a week,” she said. “I wanted to look as young as I feel.” 

Her plastic surgeon, Dr. Daniel Man of Boca Raton, Fla., who said he is seeing increasing numbers of patients over age 70, said, “These people are healthy and want to be an active part of society.”

Any operation poses risks, but surprisingly few studies have focused on older patients and cosmetic enhancements. One report, published in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in June, found that the hazards in people over age 65 are no greater than in the younger population. 

Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic reviewed the medical records of 216 face-lift patients over the course of three years. The researchers found no significant difference in the instances of minor or major complications between one group of patients whose average age was 70 and another group whose average age was 57.6.

“We’re saying it’s not chronologic age that’s so important, but it really is physiologic,” said Dr. James E. Zins, the senior author of the study and chairman of the department of plastic surgery at the Cleveland Clinic.

All patients in his study were screened for such health problems as lung and heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as use of medications, like anticoagulants, that could have complicated the operations. But not all older patients may be so thoroughly screened, , so his findings don’t necessarily mean the risks are minimal in an older population. 

“Is there a theoretical age upon which complications do become more likely?” he mused. “Does that mean that patients 70 and 75 years and over can safely undergo a face-lift with the same complication rate as young patients? We didn’t have enough numbers to answer that question.”

While face-lifts can be performed under “conscious sedation,” other reconstructive procedures typically require general anesthesia, which may be risky for an elderly patient. Older patients may take longer to heal, and the results of plastic surgery may not last as long as in younger patients, said Dr. Michael Niccole, a plastic surgeon in Newport Beach, Calif. 

Some critics questions whether the benefits are worth the risks, which may be underestimated.

“You know there are biases because of the underreporting of negative findings,” said James Hughes, executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, a nonprofit research group in Hartford. “The doctors have more or less financial incentives to do these procedures, and that often leads them to understate alternative kinds of treatments or medical advice.” 

Harriet A. Washington, author of two books about medical ethics issues, asks how older patients can give informed consent to plastic surgery when so little is known of its risks to them, especially to those with chronic conditions like diabetes, osteoporosis and heart disease. 

“It’s one of those things that has crept up on us, and I think, as usual, we’ve embraced the technology before we’ve really embraced the ethical questions and dimensions,” she said. 

And while most research indicates that people benefit psychologically from cosmetic procedures, reporting improvements in their appearance and in body image, a minority experience some kind of emotional “turbulence,” said David Sarwer, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. 

“There are truly psychological repercussions to these procedures, which often aren’t covered in the informed consent process,” he said.

And yet: Assuming a patient is healthy, meets all of the presurgical criteria and understands that there are risks, why is it people often are squeamish about seniors going under the knife?

Nancy Etcoff, an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School who studies biology and social beliefs about beauty, believes the double takes arise from our culture’s mixed feelings about old people actively on the prowl. “Part of our stereotype of old people is that they are social, warm and likeable, but powerless and sexless,” she said. “Here we are in the age of Viagra, which is very well accepted, but suddenly the idea of older people, mostly women, wanting to be sexually attractive at that age makes us uncomfortable.

“If an older woman wants to regain eyelids or wants a breast that she doesn’t have to tuck into a waistband, then why not?” 

Ms. Kolstad asked herself much the same question. “In my day, no one ever thought about breast enhancement or anything,” she said. “But nowadays women go out and they would never get a second look if they show their age. I find that you have to keep up your appearance physically, even if you just want a companion or someone to ask you to dinner. 

“That’s not going to happen if you don’t have a figure that these geezers are looking for.” 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/health/09plastic.html?src=me&ref=general

Schwarzenegger Cheats On Maria & Then Wears This???

LOS ANGELES (KTLA) -- Arnold Schwarzenegger appears to be using his wardrobe to send a message to estranged wife Maria Shriver. The former governor recently donned a t-shirt that read, "I survived Maria."

The shirt reads, "I survived Maria" (TMZ)

Schwarzenegger was spotted wearing the shirt during a bike ride Sunday in Santa Monica.

The garment was designed by Shriver's staff as a joke and given to Schwarzenegger last November during a farewell party for his staff, TMZ is reporting.

The shirt, which originally had the dates 2007-2010 printed on the bottom, was altered to list the dates 1977-2010. Schwarzenegger and Shriver began dating in 1977.

The couple filed for divorce earlier this year after Schwarzenegger admitted to fathering a child with former housekeeper, Mildred "Patty" Baena. 

http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/ktla-schwarzenegger-t-shirt-diss,0,5499820.story 

Celebrating Girl-Groups!

It was all about love. Waiting for it, finding it, showing it, fearing for it, fighting for it, sometimes losing it, sometimes taking it all the way to happy-ever-after marriage. On Saturday afternoon the rock archivists of the Ponderosa Stomp and Lincoln Center Out of Doors presented a fond four-hour marathon of girl-group songs from the early 1960s, sung by the women who made them. 

Leslie Gore

Headlined by Ronnie Spector, Lesley Gore and LaLa Brooks (of the Crystals), the concert also brought back names that drift by on oldies stations: the Exciters, the Jaynetts, the Angels, the Cookies, the Toys, the Chantels, Reparata and the Delrons, Maxine Brown, Baby Washington, Beverly Warren. 

While the event was called “She’s Got the Power!,” most of the songs told just the opposite story: of women with strong voices and chiming, rocking tunes who were declaring how completely their happiness depended on a guy’s love. (Ms. Gore had the rare exception with her feisty “You Don’t Own Me.”) The show’s backup orchestra, which included guitarists from the Rascals, Yo La Tengo and the Patti Smith Group, was cleverly named the Boyfriends. 

The singers were teenagers in the 1950s and ’60s, with high, bright, sometimes untrained voices that leaped out of transistor-radio speakers, like Ronnie Spector’s raw, arresting tone: a definitive Noo Yawk voice. The songwriting behind them came largely from cubicles and office-building studios in New York City, where teams like Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry distilled tales of romance down to two and a half minutes and a chorus like “Baby, I Love You.” 

There were girl groups elsewhere, particularly in Motown, but this concert at the Damrosch Park Bandshell rightly celebrated New York as the fountainhead. The music reflected the city, uptown and downtown, with brash arrangements, doo-wop harmonies, a frequent hint of a Latin beat and some Broadway storytelling. The sophisticated harmonies and horn arrangements behind a song like Ms. Gore’s “Judy’s Turn to Cry” easily connect to show tunes. 

The concert was in three parts: a revue with the lesser-known singers doing a few songs each; a string of minisets from the headliners; and a closing tribute to the prolific Ms. Greenwich, described by Paul Shaffer (who sat in on keyboards) as “the spirit of the girl-group sound.” A representative from BMI, the royalties collection agency, announced that by its tabulation Ms. Greenwich’s songs have received airplay totaling 125 years. 

The singers aren’t teenagers anymore. Voices have lowered and thickened; dance steps, with a few exceptions, were more limited. Arlene Smith of the Chantels worked the stage in a motorized wheelchair as she sang “Maybe.” But many of the voices had aged well. The clear standout was Ms. Brooks, lean and incredibly limber at 64, who belted “And Then He Kissed Me,” “Da Doo Ron Ron” and a borrowed song, “River Deep, Mountain High,” with lavish, exultant drama (and a little Tina Turner rasp for “River Deep”).

Ms. Brown’s songs — “All in My Mind,” “Oh No Not My Baby” and “We’ll Cry Together” — were suffused with pained suspicion and tearful relief. Brenda Reid pushed the Exciters’ songs “Tell Him” and “Doo Wah Diddy Diddy” toward hearty gospel. Louise Murray, one of the many vocalists on the Jaynetts’ “Sally Go ’Round the Roses,” brought out the desperate warning at the core of that mysterious song. 

Typical of the Ponderosa Stomp’s thoroughness, the performers also included half a dozen of the era’s frequent backup singers, among them Toni Wine, who wrote (with Carole Bayer Sager) “A Groovy Kind of Love,” and sang it solo at an electric keyboard with elfin affection. 

Though women’s songs now express more independence, the girl-group sound has been durable. It’s had its latest resurgence with bands like the Cults and Best Coast, and Ms. Spector made a point of singing a slightly expurgated version of Amy Winehouse’s girl-group-styled “Back to Black.” At the Ponderosa Stomp young love — yearning, confused, desperate, triumphant, blissful — still glowed from the grown-ups onstage, culminating in that definitive girl-group wish in the finale: “Be My Baby.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/arts/music/shes-got-the-power-at-lincoln-center-review.html?_r=1&WT.mc_id=AR-D-I-NYT-MOD-MOD-M213-ROS-0811-HDR&WT.mc_ev=click

Lucy & Desi --- The Early Years

Years later it would seem ironic that they met, in 1940, on the RKO set of a picture called Too Many Girls. She was a 28-year-old contract player with a string of forgettable films, he, at 23, a dashing, Cuban-horn nightclub bandleader. They married six months later. While she tended a soaring Hollywood career, he toured the country with his rumba band. In time, as depicted in this week's CBS TV movie Lucy & Desi: Before the Laughter (Feb. 10), the relationship between Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz began to fray with the strain of separation.


By 1950 Lucy was starring on radio with actor Richard Denning in the popular CBS show My Favorite Husband. When the network launched a version of the show for the new medium of television, she insisted that Desi be cast as her spouse. The formula was magic. In its six-year run, I Love Lucy, making perfect use of Ball's vibrant talent and Desi's behind-the-scenes business savvy, would become the most successful comedy series on TV and earn millions for the couple's production company, Desilu. Each week 40 million viewers watched the onscreen antics of the Ricardo family. But off-screen, the Arnaz marriage, which produced two children before ending in a 1960 divorce, was a volatile interplay of alcoholism, infidelity—and a surpassing love that endured for nearly 50 years.

William Asher, I Love Lucy director:

Before the show began [in 1951] they had already been separated. An actress and a bandleader. He was on the road; she was a working professional. That's the kind of marriage that has failure written all over it. You're separated a while, and before you know it. those giblets begin to jump.

Bob Weiskopf, who with partner Bob Schiller was a longtime writer for Ball and Arnaz:

At the time the consensus was, "What the hell do we want with a Latin bandleader who can't speak English?" But she wanted him because she knew that if he went on the road with the band, he'd be catting around all the time. She wanted him at home, where she felt the marriage would have a better chance of lasting, which of course it did.

Charles Pomerantz, Lucy's longtime publicist:

Before they did the series, he was a bandleader coming home at 3 or 4 in the morning. And by then she was up and on her way to makeup at RKO. She used to say, "We just can't keep meeting in the Sepulveda tunnel." And her strategy must've worked, because she got pregnant right away. She said she finally had him where she wanted him... for a couple of days.

Lillian Briggs Winograd, one of Lucy's closest friends:

Lucy had two or three miscarriages before she gave birth to little Lucie |on July 17, 1951. three months before the show's debut). She thought that having a baby would hold them together.

Bart Andrews, author of three books on the couple and their work:

Some of Desi's womanizing was alleviated from the moment little Lucie was born. I think he felt more sensitive about those things and stopped some of that. For a while, at least.

William Asher: When they were having the baby and we did the show about the birth of Little Ricky [which coincided with the birth of their second child, Desi Jr., on Jan. 19, 1953], Desi was terribly emotional about her. He really was crazy about her. You could feel how they felt.

Madelyn Pugh Davis, who along with Bob Carroll made up Lucy's longest-running comedy-writing team:

Desi was a charmer. We used to call him the Cuban Arm because he'd put his arm around you and say, "Listen, amigo..." And you were done for.

Phyllis McGuire, the singer, who met Lucy in the early 1950s:

I could see what she saw in him. He was flashy, lovable, absolutely charming. And that accent...

June Allyson, who with her husband, Dick Powell, was a friend of the couple's:

Lucy was very bright, but Desi was the brains. He was the staunch one. He ran the whole thing. Lucy just deferred to him.

William Luce, coscreenwriter for Lucy & Desi:

Before the Laughter: When they were beginning I Love Lucy, Desi bargained for ownership of those 179 episodes, so they could show them to their children. There was no concept of reruns in those days. A few years later Desi sold them all back to CBS for millions.

Madelyn Pugh Davis: One time [in 1957] he was off the set doing something, and Lucy says, "I suppose he's buying RKO." Which he was.

Bob Weiskopf: Once, on the set, Lucy tripped on a cable. She didn't fall, just sort of stumbled. He grabbed us, "Jeez, amigos, anything happens to her, and we're all in the shrimp business."

Madelyn Pugh Davis: He always knew she was the star. Never in all those years did I ever hear him say, "Where's my part?" He just thought she was it, and if she was taken care of, that was all that counted. He protected her. People were always asking her to do commercials and things, and he'd say, "No, she doesn't do that."

Bob Weiskopf: There were never any knock-down-drag-out fights around the set. Desi was from an upper-crust sort of society in Cuba. He was too well-mannered. He'd be the last person in the world to drag out the dirty linen in front of anybody.

Keith Thibodeaux, who played Little Ricky on the I Love Lucy show:

[At their home] there was always tension. One time Desi Jr. and I were playing in the backyard, and they were in the guest house. We heard a lot of loud arguing and cursing and glass shattering and screaming, and we were scared. Desi Jr. turned to me and said, "There they go again." I was about 9,10 years old.

Madelyn Pugh Davis: They had one fight, and I remember we thought, "There goes the series." By the time we were all hearing about it, they'd already made up. That's the way they were.

Bob Weiskopf: There were a lot of occasions when Lucy insulted Desi—usually indirectly. She'd mention to someone else, Vivian [Vance, who played Ethel Mertz], for example, what had happened in a poker game over the weekend in Palm Springs. In front of him, she'd talk about what stupid plays he had made. I thought, "Jesus Christ, this guy's a saint." I would have punched her in the nose.

Keith Thibodeaux: They had separate bedrooms in Beverly Hills at one point. Once, at their home in Palm Springs, she told her chauffeur to drive her down to the Indian Wells Country Club. She asked my father [a family friend] to go along with her. She went to the lounge to have a drink, and Desi walked in with a couple of women on his arm. When he saw Lucy at the bar, he turned around and took off.

Charles Pomerantz: The magazine Confidential came out with a story saying Desi was a womanizer. I gave an advance copy to Desi, and Lucy said, "I want to read this story." It was during a rehearsal day, and she went into her dressing room. Everybody was frozen on the set. She finally came out, tossed the magazine to Desi and said, "Oh, hell, I could tell them worse than that."

Bob Weiskopf: He was never drunk on the set. But he did always think in terms of liquor. We once worked very late, and I started to look at my watch. Desi says, "Jesus, I'm sorry, amigos. Who'd like something to drink?" No thought as to whether anyone might like a sandwich. Just, "My God! Going all this time without a cocktail!"

Jim Bacon, veteran Hollywood reporter for the Associated Press: The big problem with their marriage was that when Desi would get drunk, he was wild. If he was out carousing, he wouldn't call in one whore, he'd call in 18. One night when I was with him in Palm Springs, he didn't do anything but sit on the floor naked and sing "Babaloo" with all these whores around.

Bob Weiskopf: Basically, Desi's attitude was, "What the hell's the matter? I love her. When I go out with women, they're usually hookers. Those don't count."

Shelley Winters, a longtime friend: They had a house in Palm Springs where he used to go and just stay and drink. I think he just wanted Lucy to think he was off being unfaithful, just to make her miserable. He just couldn't take that she was so much more important than he was. Nobody ever called her Mrs. Arnaz.

Jim Bacon: Lucy put up with it quite a bit, but then it just became too embarrassing. Especially when he got arrested on Hollywood Boulevard. That was sometime in the '50s. The cops picked him up, drunk, standing in front of this whorehouse, singing Cuban songs.

Bart Andrews: She told me that by 1956 it wasn't even a marriage anymore. They were just going through a routine for the children. She told me that for the last five years of their marriage, it was "just booze and broads." That was in her divorce papers, as a matter of fact.

Lillian Briggs Winograd: Desi was the love of Lucy's life. It was romantic, passionate, everything you could imagine in a love affair, and she was deeply hurt by what happened. They had tried like three times to get a divorce, but Lucy had always stopped it. Finally she planned to move to Switzerland, take her kids and get out of Hollywood. At the time, in 1960, she had one final commitment to do Wildcat on Broadway.

Shelley Winters: I saw her [postdivorce] in Wildcat when she met Gary Morton [the nightclub comic she married in 1961]. She realized she needed someone who wouldn't be clobbered too much by her success and who would take care of her.

Jack Carter, the comedian who introduced Ball to Gary Morton: When Jimmy Durante died I in 1980], his widow, Margie, asked Desi to help with the funeral. They were old friends from the Del Mar racetrack days. Desi was so out of it that he kept inviting people, who were dead. He kept calling up that old racetrack crowd, and they were all gone. He was thinking of people from 30 years ago when they were kids. At the funeral Desi stood in the back, stammering. He didn't know where he was. He was even bombed that day.

William Asher: I think she always loved him. And there's no question that he loved her always. Later, he married her double. Edie [Mack Hirsch] was a marvelous girl in her own right, but she sure as hell looked like Lucy.

Lillian Briggs Winograd: People in Hollywood knew of Desi's philandering and drinking, but she always wanted to keep it private and never hurt him, even in the later years when she was so big and he was really down and out. She always hated what was written about them, so I would say, "Lucy, why don't vow write a book?" She'd say, "No, it's nobody's business."

Jim Bacon: Even after she'd married Gary, whenever she'd see me, she would always take me over to a corner and say, "Have you heard from Desi lately?" She wanted to know how he was getting along. There was always that great, great love there.

Jack Carter: Desi and Gary got along fine. Desi wasn't really that concerned with him. It was like he didn't exist. He'd ask Lucy, "How's that guy?"

Lillian Briggs Winograd: I don't want to take anything away from her relationship with Gary. He made her extremely happy during the last 25 years of her life. But it was a different kind of happiness.

Jack Carter: Lucy loved Desi till the day she died [following heart surgery on April 26, 1989]. He was the father of her kids. Even after she married Gary, she'd still run these lovely home movies of her and Desi and the kids when they were little. Everybody was in them, smiling by the pool, running up real fast, waving hello, Lucy walking knock-kneed and doing her Lucy faces. She'd sit there giving commentaries. She loved watching those movies.

Lillian Briggs Winograd: At the end, we drove down to Del Mar, where she went to see Desi a few days before he died [of lung cancer on Dec. 2, 1986]. She was very, very shook-up. She left that place and broke down and said, "That was the one love..."

William Asher: Maybe I'm the romantic, but there was a great, great love there, there really was. Desi was very unhappy about the breakup, and I think she was too. I don't think either one of them ever got over it.

Things happen. It was very sad. But they're together now.

—Susan Schindehette, Andrew Abrahams, Leah Feldon-Mitchell and Marie Moneysmith in Los Angeles

http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20114475,00.html

8 Things You Should Never Say to Your Husband

One of the best parts about marriage is being so comfortable with your hubby that you can say just about anything to him. But if you don’t watch your mouth, sometimes the ugly truth comes out in hurtful—not helpful––ways. Though you may have legitimate concerns to express or issues to bring up, doing so in a harsh manner can be damaging in the long term, to both your husband’s feelings and your relationship. According to Judy Ford, psychotherapist and author of Every Day Love, “Speaking kindly is a skill that couples have to learn. Everyone feels battered by life and the outside world. You shouldn’t feel that way at home.” Here, nine statements that you should never utter to your significant other––and the words that you should try instead. 1. “You’re just like your father.

“This is just a no-no,” says Julie Orlov, psychotherapist, speaker and author of The Pathway to Love. “It’s nasty and belittling, and it gets at his fear that he may be exhibiting the worst traits of his family.” If you’re about to spout a criticism like this, stop and think about what’s behind it: Maybe your father-in-law is the kind of guy who never cleans up after himself, and your husband’s habit of leaving dirty dishes around the house is getting to you. According to Ford, you should skip the insult and get right to a reasonable request, such as: “Hon, when you’re done with your sandwich, can you bring your dish over to the sink?” That way, you can achieve your goals without hurting him in the process. Photo: Shutterstock

2. “When are you going to find a new job?”

First, figure out why you want him to find a new job so badly. Do you dislike how much time he spends away from home? Do you think he can or should be further ahead career-wise? Is he not bringing home a healthy-enough salary? “Before you say anything that could be hurtful to him, think about what your own issues are,” says Ford. Be particularly careful that you're not attacking his ability to support you and the kids: “Part of how a man evaluates himself is by how well he can take care of his family,” says Ford, so insulting him in this sensitive area can be a serious blow. To avoid this, have regular talks about both of your jobs, career ambitions and budget concerns. If you have an issue with how much money he’s making, “it’s an opportunity to talk about your lifestyle and how you want to live,” she adds. The aim is to avoid putting him on the defensive, and instead work together to create the life you both want. Photo: Shutterstock

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3. “My mother warned me you’d do this!”

Something must have seriously infuriated you, because what you’re doing here is letting him know that there are others in your “camp.” “You are trying to validate your ‘side’ of an argument, as though you’re marshalling an army to your side,” says Orlov. But that’s never a good idea because it’s telling him that you’re not on his side, or on the side of your relationship. Though you should never let the opinions of others’ dictate your relationship, if there is some kernel of truth to a concern that your mother raised, think about how to address that. “Maybe your mother said ‘he’s too cheap,’” says Orlov. “Say to him, ‘why do you sometimes seem reluctant to spend money on things we need?’” Without ganging up on him, that could open up a discussion about money worries that stem from his childhood, for example. “Room is now cleared for creative problem-solving,” says Orlov. And if you’re just lashing out? Hold your tongue and focus on the root of what’s making you mad. In the end, coming to a solution together will make you feel better than unleashing hurtful words. Photo: Shutterstock

4. “Just leave it––I’ll do it myself!

This is hurtful in two ways. First, it gets at your husband’s elemental need to be a provider, supporter and capable person in the house. Second, it’s just plain demeaning for any adult to hear that his efforts are sub-par. Do this too often and your husband might think, “I can never do anything right or anything that’ll please her,” says Ford. A better choice is to pick your battles. If he’s in the middle of a task and you think that he’s doing it wrong, evaluate whether it really matters, keeping in mind that, just because he’s doing something differently than you would doesn’t mean that he’s doing it wrong—he is, after all, an adult too. Sure, if he’s about to hurt himself or someone else or break something, kindly step in. But if he’s just loading the dishwasher in a way that drives you nuts? Let it be. Photo: Thinkstock

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5. “You always... [fill in the blank]” or “You never... [fill in the blank]”

“These are two phrases I advise couples never to use,” says Ford, “because they set up an instant, negative tone; they halt communication and they put the other person on the defensive.” These blanket statements can make your husband feel unfairly attacked, and chances are he’ll just fire back with all the times he did help. If there are legitimate problems you’d like to address (he really does tend to leave his tools all over the garage floor or often forgets to put gas in the car after driving it), avoid generalizing and try to focus on the issue at hand while also communicating how his actions make you feel: “When you come home with an empty tank of gas, I feel like you don't care about the next person who has to drive the car—which is usually me.” Then add the phrase “would you be willing...,” suggests Ford. Try: “Would you be willing to fill up the car when it gets below a quarter tank?” Most men are willing to do most anything that’ll make you happy––it’s all in how you ask. Photo: Shutterstock

6. “Do you really think those pants are flattering?”

Are you trying to hint that he’s putting on weight? Because saying the above, says Ford, is not getting anything concrete across. You may think that you’re subtly conveying the message, but instead you’re insulting his looks without showing any genuine concern for his health. Instead, start with something you like about how he looks: “When you wear that blue shirt, it really makes me appreciate your gorgeous blue eyes.” Then broach the topic of his weight gain by framing the comment so it’s about his health, not looks: “Honey, what do you think about us both starting after-dinner walks?” When you’ve softened up your approach, you have more room to make other, helpful suggestions. Photo: Thinkstock

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7. “Ugh, we’re hanging out with him again?

There’s nothing wrong with your guy having a friend whose company you don’t love—no one says spouses are required to adore each other’s friends, especially that one college pal who likes to pretend he and your hubby never left the frat house. What is wrong is insulting your man’s choice of friends. Your disdain may also suggest that you’d prefer to pick his friends for him—and no one wants to be told who they should be pals with. A better choice: “Oh, honey, you know I don’t always enjoy doing the same things as you and George, so why don’t you plan a guys’ night instead?’” suggests Ford. Remember, there’s no marriage rule that says you two have to do everything together; he might actually be relieved to have a little guy time with his pal that doesn't involve him having to worry if you’re having fun or are offended by his friend’s jokes. (And keep this in mind: If a friend is really awful, your husband is much more likely to see that on his own, over time, whereas if you nag him to drop the dolt it may never happen.) Photo: Paul Bradbury / Getty Images

8. “Please watch the kids. But don’t do this, take them here or forget that...”

This is a classic nervous-new-mom move: When you’re in anxiety mode, it can be hard to let go of childcare tasks (even though you would love to have more help). It’s also an attitude that can become a habit no matter how long you’ve been a mom, leading to some very unhealthy feelings: You may become resentful because he doesn’t pitch in, but you don’t always give him room to, either. At the end of the day, no husband is going to be inspired to be a better, more hands-on and involved dad if his every effort is shot down, says Orlov. “If he always feels like he’s wrong, he’ll only start to disconnect emotionally.” So let Dad be Dad. Trust that he knows as well as you do how to keep a child clean, safe and fed—even if his definitions of those tasks are slightly different than your own. That said, if there are things he needs to know, like how to use the stroller or what the pediatrician’s phone number is, definitely give him the rundown.

by Denise Schipani

http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/sex/8-things-you-should-never-say-to-your-husband-2518233/