Salon ran a depressing piece stating the obvious: Due to increasing college and retirement costs as well as stagnant wages, we are the first generation to be worse off than our parents. While the American Dream is out of reach for more people, the richest minority has experienced even greater riches not seen since the roaring '20s, according to the article.

Salon's Katharine Mieszkowski conducted an interview with Nan Mooney, author of the newly released (Not) Keeping Up With Our Parents: The Decline of the Professional Middle Class to shed more light on this phenomenon. Here is an excerpt:

How would you characterize the educated middle-class professional you're writing about?

These are people who went to college and have at least a four-year degree. Oftentimes, they have extended education beyond that, a master's or a Ph.D. They're people who work in white-collar professions, usually not the high-end professions like law or medicine or finance.

Why did you want to write about this group?

Because I fall into this group and so many people I know fall into this group, and I feel like we fall under the umbrella of having done everything they say you're supposed to do to be financially secure in America.

There is this myth that if everyone could just go to college and get the proper job skills we would all be financially comfortable, and I was looking around me and saying, "Well, that's not true."

But if you have a college education you're more likely to be financially secure than if you have only a high school education.

Yes, absolutely. But the rhetoric goes beyond that. It says that you will be secure, and you will be comfortable. If you look at the rates of bankruptcies of people who are getting in deep credit-card debt, it's not only the people with the high-school educations. It's traveled well into what we consider the professional middle class.

How has college debt risen for this group in a generation?

In the '70s, we were barely taking out student loans. In 1977, collectively students were borrowing about $6 billion. By now, they're borrowing over $85 billion. That's a remarkable number. The number of students enrolled in college grew 44 percent between 1977 and 2003, but student loan volume rose 833 percent in that same time period.

There are fewer grants and scholarships available. If students go through graduate school, they can end up taking out over $100,000 of student loans. And if you go into a field that's not high-paying that can be a real burden on you for 20, 30, 40 years.

We are seeing more people going to college, which is definitely a positive move, but they're getting into a lot of debt to do it. The college degree now is what the high school degree used to be. You really need a basic bachelor's degree in order to be eligible for a lot of jobs.

After winning a court case that changed a California law against men taking their wives' last name, Michael Buday picked up his new driver's license bearing his new name -- Michael Bijon, according to Reuters.

Two years ago, Michael and wife Diana Bijon were surprised to learn that for him to take her surname, he would have to pay $350 and face a barrage of bureaucracy, including court appearances and paper work usually not obstacles for women. The couple took their case to the American Civil Liberties Union -- and won.

"Women have fought for so long for equal rights and it feels like this is part of that fight," said Diana Bijon. "When we got married, the law basically said, 'Don't be silly, only a woman can change her name when she gets married."'

"I am really, really proud of him. Not many men would do this," she said.

A subsequent lawsuit led to a new California state law guaranteeing the rights of both married couples and registered domestic partners to choose whichever last name they prefer on their marriage and driving licences.

"This disposes of the rule in California that the male surname is the marital name to the same trash bin where dowries were once tossed out," said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the Southern California chapter of the ACLU.

Michael said he decided to take his wife's last name because he is closer to his father-in-law than his own father.

I learned about this story through Salon's Broadsheet.

Third Wave Foundation's Amy Richards has written yet another book on the mommy wars. (Isn't this market already saturated?)

But she raised some worthy fodder in a Q&A with Salon's Ashley Sayeau. Here is an excerpt:

What can the feminist movement do to change course, to challenge the perception that it has failed mothers?

I think the feminist movement has created just as rigid an image of what a mother should be as society has created -- a very different version, but nonetheless it has created a stereotype of who is a good feminist mother. Organizations like NOW, for instance, have a Parenting Bill of Rights that promotes these specific mandates that qualify for feminist parenting. And while I don't want to be misrepresented as watering feminism down, I also want to acknowledge that our choices are never going to be pure.

What stops so many people from wanting to identify with feminism is the belief that they're never going to be able to do it in a pure way. So rather than being judged for doing it wrongly, they don't do it at all. But I want more people to take the risk. Just taking the risk is going to make society look different.

What are some of the risks women can take?

I think a lot of it is the responsibilities in the home. You poll most couples, and women are still -- even if they are working outside the home as much as their husbands -- the primary caregiver in the home and are still primarily responsible for the home. Some of that's because men haven't stepped up to the plate, but some of it is because women haven't pushed for control. And to me it's sad that women don't feel confident enough to own who they are as individuals and thus hold on very tightly to the role of mother.

I love it when authors purporting to hate the mommy wars then go on to tell you how to be a parent. Don't you?

But I am interested in jump-starting a discussion on her first point about "feminist parenting." What does being a feminist parent mean to you? How does this manifest itself?

I admit, I avoided the cheerleaders at my high school. Actually, I was friends with one Spanish exchange student who joined the squad as she saw cheerleading as this all-American sport and a way to assimilate. But I teased her, calling cheerleading “cheesy.”

The image of the pretty airhead with pom-poms never did escape me -- until now. This article in Salon gave me pause.

Salon writer Lynn Harris interviewed Kate Torgovnick, author of the recently released Cheer! Three Teams On a Quest For College Cheerleading’s Ultimate Prize.  What Torgovnick found in her book was not the stereotypical pretty girl hanging onto male athletes, but one of the toughest athletes at school. And most of the women she encountered were not these dainty butterflies, but tough competitors who played football or joined ROTC. Ditto with male cheerleaders who were unheard of at my high school in the early '90s.

Here is a snippet of Harris's interview with Torgovnick:

If you need anymore reason to fear a John McCain presidency, check out his response to a sex education inquiry by the New York Times. (Thanks Salon for the tip!):

Q: What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush's policy, which is just abstinence?

McCain: (Long pause) Ahhh. I think I support the president's policy.

Q: So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?

McCain: (Long pause) You've stumped me.

As Salon’s Rahul K. Parikh, M.D., pointed out, McCain’s continuation of Bush’s policy of abstinence-only education is not only disturbing, it is ineffective. Almost two-thirds of female adolescents have had sex by their senior year of high school, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most recently, the CDC found that one in four teen girls has a sexually transmitted disease.

McCain does support Bush's ideologically based policies. He has voted against legislation to ensure that sex education be scientifically accurate instead of just abstinence based, has voted to impose parental consent for teens seeking birth control, and has opposed legislation that birth control be covered by insurance. He has also voted against programs to increase awareness about emergency contraception.

How do Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama stack up? In Dr. Parikh’s view a heck of a lot better. They both have received a 100 percent rating from pro-choice groups and favor sex education that is based on science, including information on contraception. Clinton, however, has a longer record and has received the endorsement of all the women’s rights groups, including NOW and NARAL.

This letter to Salon’s Cary Tennis resonated with me as it is something my own family has had to grapple with my grandmother. Should this son tell his father he has Alzheimer’s disease? Tennis’s response:

I think your father has a right to know about his diagnosis, but he should be told by his doctor.

If that were all there is to it, this could be a one-sentence column.

But there is always more to say. For instance, how do you ensure that he is told, if your mother does not want him to know? And are you sure that he does not know? He may have been told but not give signs of knowing…

Regardless of what he "knows" or does not "know," I think we have a moral obligation to treat him as a person capable of understanding, and thus to tell him of his condition, to treat him as though he can understand even if he fails to give us the accustomed signals of comprehension.

On principle, I agree with Tennis. But what I would have added is this son’s mother -- not the son, who is largely an overseas soldier -- is taking care of the father. I would respect her wishes as she is the one making medical decisions for him and taking care of him.

But I feel for the son, who clearly, is very close to his father. I was touched by his description of his dad:

He was the personification of what a man and father should be. Strong yet gentle, firm yet understanding. He loves my mother with a passion and depth that I only appreciate now.

About a month ago, I hit rock-bottom when DH was out of town and I had a stomach bug and the two kids. Man, does it suck when you have kids and get sick. What a difference from the pre-kid days when you could stay home from work and watch TV. Heh.

Anyways, I had flirted with the idea of moving back to New Hampshire to be closer to my parents and siblings there. My husband talked me out of it because he reassured me that once he was done with his book (the end of this month), he will have a saner schedule with less travel and can help me. Plus, we would lose money on our home if we were to sell it today and we do not have the money to purchase a second home. Most importantly, we love Berkeley! The warm weather, the politics, the diversity, city life and culture -- this is who we are.

As if I needed more proof to stay, I smiled at the advice Salon’s Cary Tennis recently gave to a woman who, in a worse position than me, but still was wondering the same thing: should she move back home to Wisconsin -- after years of living in her beloved Colorado -- to be closer to her mother who is dying of ovarian cancer. Her two sisters also live there. Tennis said no.

I would not move back there now. If you want to move back there, you can do so later. Instead, right now, I suggest you maintain your own household and be ready to travel on short notice and to make extended stays.

So maintain your stable home in Colorado, and visit as often as you can. Be there. But don't move there. You will be glad, over the months and possibly years ahead, that you can return to your Colorado home for respite. The near future will be hard enough as it is.

If you move back there now, not only might you feel trapped, but it also might not be the best thing for your family. They are under great stress. So if you relocate to Wisconsin in the midst of this stress and difficulty, you may find yourself struggling with your sisters over things none of you really understand, buffeted by powerful and unexplained emotions driven by deep, unacknowledged motives -- to save your mother, to reunite the family, to recapture a happier time when your father was there, to overcome guilt about leaving for Colorado. And those struggles might divert everyone from what is really going on. This is about your mother. Your mother is gravely ill and will probably die soon. That is the thing you must face.

He is right that it may be an impulsive and emotional decision and one she may regret after her mother passes away. Of course, to each her own. I may have a hard time staying away if any of my parents were gravely ill.

But I liked his perspective in why we may choose to live where we do:

Thanks to Salon’s broadsheet, I began reading the comments to this Newsweek “My Turn,” by a woman who decided not to legally marry her life partner who proposed to her.

When I read the original piece, I thought nothing of it. In her column, Emeryville, Calif. writer Bonnie Eslinger, wrote she did not need a “piece of paper” to validate her relationship with partner Jeff. Here are the reasons she cited:

I don't need a white dress to feel pretty, and I have no desire to pretend I'm virginal. I don't need to have Jeff propose to me as if he's chosen me. I don't need a ring as a daily reminder to myself or others that I am loved. And I don't need Jeff to say publicly that he loves me, because he says it privately, not just in words but in daily actions.

Our married friends say you can make a wedding—and a marriage—what you want, but that is not true. It's a specific institution with defining principles and values. If it weren't, there wouldn't be so-called marriage-protection laws in the majority of this country's states.

And for me, that's the bottom line when I consider cashing in on all the benefits our heterosexual relationship is entitled to. My gay friends can't do that. I don't want to send a message to anyone, including my daughter—who may someday choose a same-sex life partner—that the value of her relationships can be determined by law and the affirmation of others.

Jeff and Bonnie plan to have a commitment ceremony without clergy or the state. The reason she wrote this piece for Newsweek -- at least this is my interpretation -- is because she hopes that family will show up to the commitment ceremony; that she is tired of nosy questions such as, “When are you going to get married?” -- which, BTW, should be filed away with the annoying “When are you going to have a baby?” -- or, the insinuation that her relationship is less “real” because they are not legally married.

My husband and I did go the legal route, although no one except the judge and a security guard and clerk who acted like our witnesses actually saw it. We decided to get the "piece of paper" because my husband needed health benefits from me and we wanted to legally protect the children we planned to have. I do think there are financial benefits to marriage especially if you start out young and broke like us.

But we also had  a non-legal and non-denominational commitment ceremony in El Salvador, which was met with skepticism by especially older family members. DH’s grandmother refused to show up because “it doesn’t mean anything.” My grandmother almost did not go because there was no priest at the wedding. At the end of the ceremony, which was marked by a bonfire at the beach and the writing of our own vows, she told me it was the most beautiful ceremony she had ever witnessed. There you go.

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. –Mark Twain

Let me set the record straight: The gist of this quote is true -- will get to that in a moment -- but the quote, often cited around San Francisco and attributed to Mark Twain, is false, according to debunk site Snopes.com. Twain never said it.

That said, the coldest summer I have experienced is in San Francisco when I waited an hour outside the passport office yesterday. I then waited another hour indoors, and another hour at the end of the day to pick up the passport. Whew! (If you find yourself in a similar predicament, don’t bother calling for an appointment. Just go to the passport office!)

Still, my favorite moment had to be when I was standing outside nursing Eli as the San Francisco wind blew against us. Fun.

You know what else wasn’t fun? This recent lead article in Salon. In his essay, recently remarried and older father Daniel Asa Rose complains about fatherhood with his second wife. Basically, he feels that he has been through all this before, is bored to tears and prides himself on being a grump.

Now this had the potential to be funny. Instead, I found myself annoyed by Rose’s whining and ingratitude -- how many people in their 50s would love to be parents and can't -- and wondering if the Salon editors have no funny bone? Seriously, pull the plug on this guy.

On an actual funny note, Brain, Child featured a cartoon, which I wish had an online link. Two men holding hands stand in front of a toy store and ask the clerk: “We’re looking for the accused of being gay section?” The toys on display were Ernie and Bert, Popeye, the Teletubbies and Barney.

Happy hump day all! What are you up to today?