News in Review

It was a good news week, from a journalist's perspective. We found out that over half of all women in the U.S. are living without a spouse, which is a huge change from the 1950, when the figure was 35%. As I have reported earlier, fewer than 50% of all households are now married couples, so the demographic trend is becoming clear.

In case you have not been able to pay attention, marriage as the primary institution of American family life is dying. But there remain great disparities based on race. Here are the numbers:

*~30 percent of black women are living with a spouse,
* 49 percent of Hispanic women,
* 55 percent of non-Hispanic white women,
* More than 60 percent of Asian women.

These figures are based on the US Census Bureau's statistics.

What they tell me, as a man, is that I wish to find a true life partner, I'm twice as likely to find her if she is Asian than if she is black. White women are still doing pretty well, also.

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This week, we also discovered that the number of visitors to the blog pages of the top 10 online newspapers grew 210% in the past year, while the parent sites, according to Nielsen/NetRatings (NTRT), only grew 9% from December 2005 to December 2006.

Here are the most popular online newspaper blogs and their estimated December audiences:

* USATODAY.com blogs, 1.239 million
* The New York Times' blogs, 1.173 million
* SFGate blogs, 515,000
* Washingtonpost.com blogs, 433,000
* Boston.com blogs, 388,000.

Okay, so what does all of this mean?

To me, we are in the middle of a media revolution, and over the past decade the pattern has become undeniable, as well as irreversible. Paper newspapers are dying. Digital news sources are ascendant.

Old journalists can bemoan this fact as much as they like, but "the battle is over, let the game go on."

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There is so much more. Nancy Pelosi, my personal representative in Congress, succeeded in pushing through her 100-hour agenda with time to spare. All six policy initiatives she identified passed handily (enacting 9/11 commission recommendations, increasing the minimum wage, expanding federal funding for stem cell research, lowering Medicare drug costs, cutting interest rates on college loans, and ending tax breaks for the oil and gas industry.

All of that is good stuff, though living here in the city with the world's highest minimum wage ($9.14/hour, or about $19,000 full-time annually) I'd have to say Congress still has a ways to go to take care of people in our biggest cities.

Of course, in parts of the rural South, where the average annual working income can be in the mid-$20,000's, this sounds like okay money.

Trust me, in San Francisco, it is not. It's not even enough to pay your rent.

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This week, we also found out details about President Bush's plan to send 20,000+ more young men and women to try and salvage his failed war strategy in Iraq. The only thing I agree with the Bush administration about is that when this country fails in Iraq, the consequences will be ugly.

Not unlike in Vietnam a generation ago.

If Bush had been paying attention back then, instead of drinking and partying, he would know how foolish his war over supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction really is. Instead, the next President, Democrat or Republican, is going to inherit a terrible mess, with no clear solutions in sight.

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There were odd stories this week. A Cambodian woman who got lost in the jungle 18 years ago when she was 8 was captured as she tried to steal food from loggers. She was naked, with hair to below her knees, and her skin is blackened, and she has forgotten all but three words of her native language.

Since being captured, and returned to her family, which had assumed she had been eaten by wild animals, she crawls rather than walks and cries constantly, wishing only to return to the wilderness and not be around other human beings.

My question is this: Could that be you or could it be me?

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Goin' to New York City, yes! Lookin' forward to it, as always.

And in case the murderers of Betty Van Patter should imagine I am done with what I will be doing about that case, guess again.

More soon.

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Today, I was thrilled to be invited by a new group of Major League Baseball bloggers to join their network. Thus, a new icon appears at the top of my site. Soon, as this coming season gets underway, I will be writing a lot about the game I love most -- baseball.

Hopefully, somewhere along the way, I will also be able to report that I have not only reached first, second and third base...but also scored!

Konichiwa!