Divorce, By The Numbers
In Washington state and across the nation, divorce rates are the lowest they’ve been in two decades. Are Baby Boomers returning, like prodigal offspring, to the values of their parents’ generation?
Maybe. Maybe not. Some of the couples who might otherwise have generated divorce statistics simply aren’t marrying in the first place. U.S. census figures show seven times as many households headed by unmarried couples in 1993 as in 1970.
Even so, the continuing decline in divorce coincides with a rising interest among conservative lawmakers in making marriages harder to escape, primarily to protect children from the adverse consequences of broken homes.
Sociologists are of different minds about whether it makes things better or worse to keep warring spouses together “for the sake of the kids.”
What do “Bagpipes” readers make of the situation? Does the apparent retreat from divorce courts mean the problem is correcting itself, or is more legislative oversight called for?
Walking softly into that dark night
After 23 years, Walk in the Wild, the Spokane area’s oft-suffering aspiration for a zoo, has been put to sleep.
The gates are closed. Some of the residents are gone. Others are to be evicted by summer.
But if potential zoo operators across the state line in Idaho have more fund-raising success than the Inland Northwest Zoological Society had, the zoo may be reincarnated at the Silverwood Theme Park north of Coeur d’Alene.
What difference does it make for the community that Walk in the Wild is history in Spokane County? What difference would preserving a zoo at least in the Inland Northwest neighborhood make?
Sparse furnishings in the lobby
It’s a recurring debate: Should the city of Spokane or Spokane County hire a lobbyist to look out for local government’s interests before the Legislature in Olympia or Congress in Washington, D.C.?
For lack of unanimous consent, Spokane County commissioners decided last week not to hire former state Rep. Bill Day as the county’s lobbyist to the Legislature this year. Budget constraints were given as the reason.
Wise decision or not? Are county taxpayers forgoing an extravagance or an insurance policy?
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