Breaking the Age Barrier

I am not going to lie, I paid $13.50 to see "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn- Part I" this weekend. (It opened with a first weekend of $139.5 million) And between the love triangle between vampires, humans and werewolves, there is a deep theme to ponder about: the concept of living forever. 

If for some reason live under a rock and have never heard of The Twilight series, let me give you a quick recap; an awkward teenage girl falls in love with a 104 year old vampire. Vampires live forever while humans do not.  She wants to become immortal (become a vampire) in order to live with him forever.

Living forever (or at least for a very long time) is not as uncommon as we think anymore.  Every year Los Angele's Department of Recreation and Parks throws a birthday celebration, Legacy Luncheon, for its oldest residents. Youngest age of the celebrants? 90.  The oldest attendee? 104.  Now that is old.  Especially compared to the average life expectancy of the world population to be a mere 70.6 years old.

Compare that with the United States Social Security full benefits age of 67.  Our generations are living longer and longer thanks to modern day medicine, technology and just education on how to take care of ourselves.  This might seem awesome and great for us and future generations, but is it really?

After a certain age, I personally think I would just get bored with life.  Although we can slow down the aging process, we cannot stop it (or at least not yet anyways).  I think there would be only so many years I could live in a wheelchair, not be able to eat anything I wanted because all my teeth have fallen out or not being able to see and hear as well as I once could.

What is so great about life is that there is a time limit.  Going against a clock forces us to experience as much as we can and truly live life to its full potential.  If time was limitless, why would you ever experience anything when it could just be procrastinated?

While living longer does have its benefits (seeing grandchildren and great grandchildren, experiencing more, seeing history change, etc) I do appreciate the process of aging.  It makes life so much more appreciative and I am thankful I am alive.

Little Monsters Business

Lady Gaga might be one of the most successful business women out there.  Wait, do I mean Lady Gaga the Grammy winning singer?  And yes I do mean Lady Gaga, the woman who arrived at the last Grammy Awards in an egg.
While watching a show on Mtv.com a commercial for Google Chrome came on featuring Lady Gaga.  (Seen here)  In this commercial, Lady Gaga is reaching out to all her millions of "little monsters" or fans.  To think that millions of people will put their "paws" up for her and dress like her and just want to be like her is astounding.  They post YouTube videos, dance her dances, sing her songs, have Monster meetings, aspire to be her, and some even worship her.    Her music is a success, having several hit #1 on Billboard's Top 100, having millions and millions of views on Youtube, selling thousands of digital copies of her CDs, and earning herself Grammy Awards. 

Lady Gaga has created herself as a brand, as "Mother Monster".  

This holiday season, Lady Gaga is taking over the Barney's flagship store in New York City.  The entire 5th floor will be decorated in Monster-like theme aspiration from her latest album "Born This Way".   Cookies, apparel, accessories, and the works of Lady Gaga will all be on sale.  25% of these purchases will be going toward Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation she recently just started.  This foundation aims to "youth empowerment and equality by addressing issues like self-confidence, well-being, anti-bullying, mentoring and career development and will utilize digital mobilization as one of the means to create positive change."

It is amazing to see how fast and how huge Lady Gaga has become in a worldwide.  She has become a phenomenon and creating Little Monsters all over the world.  Paws up for Lady Gaga, Paws up.

No Gender in Couple

$17.9 million and 72 days.  That is how much money Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries’ made off of her, or their, “fairy tale wedding” and how long their marriage lasted.  If you average that out, they made roughly $250,000 a day.    Making $250,000 a day?  Seems more like a business contract than a marriage contract.   One of the advantages of getting married (besides the obvious ones of being in love and wanting to spend the rest of your life with each other) is the benefits and tax cuts couples receive from the federal government.   But this does not include same-sex couples.

But what about same-sex couples?  Legally they cannot get married on a federal level and so they are not eligible for the same rights as married couples are. 

 

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a “couple” is defined as: two persons married, engaged, or otherwise romantically paired.   There is no mention of gender or the difference between the same sex or opposite sex.   But according to Section 3 of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federalgovernment only respects marriages between a man and a woman. This means thateven if a same-sex couple's marriage is recognized by their home state, it isnot recognized for the purposes of accessing marriage benefits in federal law. Once married, couples are granted benefits by the federal government including tax, social security, full employment, and military benefits.

Personally, I believe that leaving same-sex couples out of the benefits goes against the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.

While I am not arguing for or against the legalization of same-sex marriage, I am suggesting same-sex couples in a long term, committed relationship, should receive the same benefits as any other hetro-sex couple.    

By denying same-sex couples these benefits, it is costing them upwards to $200,000 extra for health insurance.  (Numbers depending on number of children, income, local taxes, etc) So while Kim Kardashian is made $250,000 a day for the 72 days she was married, it is costing same-sex couples $200,000 extra just because they are in a relationship with someone of the same sex.

Although the federal government does not provide any support, national companies are slowly reimbursing same-sex couples the extra taxes they have to pay for health benefits for their significant other.   According to 2010, The Kaiser Family Foundation says that 36 percent of large companies that offer health benefits provide coverage for same-sex domestic partners, and more than half of Fortune 500 companies provide domestic partner coverage — but few pay the extra costs ofthat coverage.   And starting January 1 of next year, Microsoft and Yahoo will be added to the list of companies that provide the tax incentives for gay employees. (For a list of companies that do provide coverage, check it out here) 

The Human Rights Campaign helps lobby for tax benefits for same-sex couples for employers.   This group is specifically called Business Coalition for Benefits Tax Equity,Members. Currently there are 75 national companies supporting this campaign including Google, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Nike and Verizon.

 I guess I never fully understood why same-sex couples are denied rights.  While I understand why some people are opposed to having them be considered “married”, with a separation of church and state in this country, there should be no reason why a domestic partnership should be denied. 

With the institution of marriage being questioned, (I do believe Kim Kardashian’s infamous wedding has no bearing on the current situation of marriage and divorces) I think we need to take an evaluation on whom we provide benefits to.  If two people are in a committed, romantic, relationship, who gives us them the right to be denied health benefits and tax benefits just dependent on gender?  This isn’t the 1960s anymore.