DEBRADICKERSON.COM

Doing Michel Martin's "Tell Me More" Tomorrow

2010-07-22T03:36:00Z

If, of course, I don't figure out a way to blow this like I did with Don Imus.

Those of you who don't know Michel's work, you're missing a treat. I've admired her for years and was delirious to finally get in the studio with her to watch a real pro do her thing. The segment is an interview with the author of this book, to which readers of this blog might just think I can relate. It's called Starting Over: 25 Rules When You've Bottomed Out. The author ended up homeless with four kids under the age of seven when she sued her husband for divorce. Can't imagine what Michel thought we had in common, especially since the author's kids are all but grown now and, as we speak, she's the successful CEO of her own firm.

My kids are 9 and 6. They still believe in the Tooth Fairy and I'm the CEO of Empty Wallet Enterprises.

So. Anyway.

Enjoy.

Been Awake for Hours

2010-07-14T10:23:00Z

All tech issues resolved on my end. Everything's working fine and I'm wide awake. This time yesterday, I should have been on hold, waiting to go on the air with Don Imus but I screwed up.

What a difference a day makes.

Some Ugly Comments from Brothers in Inter-Racial Relationships

2010-07-14T02:19:00Z

Not sure why they're just now getting around to slamming me, but there you go. Some were just too ugly to post and I'm using a pretty long spoon on these. Enjoy?

Their bottom line: something's wrong with black women. How original.

In Which I Blow Off Don Imus

2010-07-13T11:03:00Z

I was supposed to have just finished doing Imus but major technical difficulties on my end. Major.

I've been doing this for nearly 15 years now and have never missed a gig before, so please excuse me.

My Two Cents on LeBron James @Salon

2010-07-13T02:30:00Z

Enjoy . Since I have to get up at 6 am tomorrow to wake up for Imus at 640 am tomorrow, I should have been in bed hours ago. I'm too old for this sh...stuff.

Doing Imus Tomorrow/Tuesday at 630 am.

2010-07-13T02:25:00Z

Will be endeavoring to explain why y'all should chip in towards my third book. Wish me luck.

OK. Maybe I AM Losing it

2010-07-12T13:45:00Z

My Mom taught me and my five sisters needlecrafts from an early age. So how did I go from tea cozies and chaste prom dresses to Patricia Waller?

What can I say? These speak to me. (Check out the artist's site above, but here are a chosen few from HuffPo

Also, must be said, far too many of you don't know the difference between knitting and crocheting. See: the writer of the HuffPo article.

Coupla examples:

Who Killed Bambi?

Bunny

Accident 3: Shark

Brother, Can You Spare a Cone?

2010-07-09T16:22:00Z

Really, I'm feeling pretty good. Well, there is the insomnia of late. Only slept from 5-7 am 'last night'. Not sure why. All I know is that this is how Lindsay Lohan must feel after her idea of partying. Sandpaper eyelids and a feeling of being deep underwater.

So, I'm tired but not depressed. I'm even feeling quite purposeful what with my blitzkrieg job-applying and the cheeky stunt I'm pulling to fund my next book. Whatever happens with that, whatever flak and schadenfreude I'll have to deal with, it feels damned good to simply take action.

When the going gets rough, I remember to savor the moments of grace.

Here's a rough moment: I take the kids to a nice playground most evenings. And, most evenings, my worst enemy -- the ice cream truck man -- shows up to rub my kids' faces in their poverty. While everyone else bumrushes the truck, I have to explain to Lefty and Miss Thing that we can't afford ice cream, that's there's Wal-Mart mega packs of ice pops at home. They do their best to hide their disappointment while I bury my face uncomprehendingly in my book, pretending stoicism.

When I look up, both kids are holding ice-cream truck cones. A sweet young family, young enough to be my kids and grandkids, have bought 'the poor' kids cones.

My children and I are objects of pity. Recipients of charity. Again.

I want to confront the sweet, young dad, and tell him to stuff his ice cream. I want to order the kids to throw the ice cream in the trash.

In short, I want to behave shamefully.

Instead, I force myself over to the sweet, young dad who watches me approach uncertainly, wondering whether he should have gotten involved.

I thank him as graciously as I can. I sit with them for a minute and play with their adorable infant. He and his lovely young wife relax and I do, too because I would, and have, done exactly the same thing. What goes around comes around.

When I tell Skippy about this later, her eyes go wide in horrified sympathy. She worldlessly squeezes my arm. There is nothing to be said.

Afterward the park, I take the kids to Wal-Mart for much needed, carefully selected grocery items. Intended to pay for them with my only method of savings: never throwing away receipts or removing tags from items until they're used. When times are hard, and they usually are, I return the unused items for whatever else we can do without less. Like food.

My how I used to exult in my kids rapid growth. To my shame, when I'm at my lowest, I can hate looking at those doorway height markers and instead see only the new clothes and shoes I'll have to somehow procure. When I find myself thinking that way, I launch into the 'Lefty is a giraffe! Miss Thing is a giraffe!' song I made up. They shout back, "NO. I'M. NOT! I'M A [fill in a ridiculous animal here]" We do our corny choreography, dance like dorks and laugh. The world realigns itself.

But Wal-Mart, as usual, is a zoo. We've been cooped up all day, carless in the Atlanta heat, and the kids take advantage of my careful shopping to get wild. The ice cream truck humiliation has me depleted and shopping with the $25.67 refund card is depressing. Needless to say, by the time we've waited fifteen minutes in line at one of the two open registers (20 were closed), I'm at wit's end with the kids. Then it gets worse.

I have the receipt from the returns in my hot little hands. My purchases total exactly $24.63. Tax included, thank you very much. Yet the clerk assures me that the card doesn't contain enough money. How short am I? He can't tell me. I should have told him I was using a store card. So the nightmare process of figuring out what to return begins. What good is bread without butter for the toast they consume by the loaf? Peanut butter or jelly? The claritin which allows me to breathe normally or...never mind.

It's a recreation of that scene from Terms of Endearment when Debra Winger runs short at check-out, her kids are acting out and the cashier is New York City-rude. John Lithgow saves her but the kids and I are on our own.

Unemployment lines are shorter than the ones at Wal-Mart, with all it's unmanned registers, and those snaked behind me are audibly angry at me and my unruly kids.

I want to cry. I want to give up. They kids won't settle.

But I hold on. I hold on to moments of grace.

Here's one: the last thing that happened to me before I escaped NY was running into a former student from my year teaching journalism at SUNY. I was renting a car (another act of charity from a friend) for the drive to Atlanta and the impossibly young clerk who brought it around kept staring at me, clearly working up his courage for something. He looked familiar but I couldn't place him. The classes were huge.

Finally, he worked up the courage to remind me of who he was, then tentatively told me that this was his second job. His first is a job at a small paper in neighboring Troy, NY. I 'atta-boyed' him to death. Way to go, paying his writing dues by working two jobs! Gave him my email address and told him to keep me posted. He positively beamed.

Here's another: Skippy was driving us around to run some errands when I noticed an i-Pod'd young man of about 26 broiling in the heat and humidity that is a Georgia summer. He was holding one of those signboards for a BIG MATTRESS BLOW-OUT sale. He couldn't have looked more miserable if he were breaking rocks on a chain gang and my heart broke for him. If he was making more than minimum wage, I'll eat my hat.

He made me flashback to my early years in the USAF. Flushed with early success, I was riding high as a Korean linguist serving about 50 miles from Seoul. I was quite full of myself. A bunch of us GIs went on a bus trip to the capital and, from behind, I spied a man pulling a handcart uphill through Seoul's Mad-Max traffic. It was filled with long, thick pipes that looked extremely heavy. It was 1981 and S. Korea was still decidedly Third World. Open sewers and the like. It's daughers forced to prostitute themselves to callow young GIs .

Master of the obvious, I said to my seat mate, "That looks heavy." What I meant by this was: "Aren't these peasants interesting?". What I also meant was, "My, aren't we Americans so smart to be beyond such silly ways of doing things?"

Then our bus pulled even with the man, our eyes met through the window, and I saw the look of pure agony on his face. Agony. I'm not sure that I, or even the bus, registered to him in his pa

He was not a young man and pulling that load was, quite simply, killing him.

I was disgusted with myself. He was not an anecdote. He was a person with an incredibly, unimaginably difficult life. Five minutes out of my own poverty (by way of the USAF), I was looking down on someone who had it so much worse than myself. I've never forgotten the look on that man's face.

So, thirty years later, as I observed that young man despair in the sunshine, I felt nothing but sympathy and admiration for his willingness to take any job to survive in this economy.

"Skippy," I said, then just pointed at that miserable young man.

Wordless again, all we could do was honor his struggle by seeing it. Acknowledging it.

Then, out of nowhere as we communed silently with him, his face became another one entirely. Out of nowhere, a smile utterly transformed his face. It made him beautiful. I was stunned.

Then, I felt hot air on my back. Lefty had rolled down his window. He had spotted the man, too, and was waving and yelling, "Hello! Hey, how you doin'?"

The man waved and yelled joyfully back at my beautiful son.

Lefty made that man's day.

Another moment of grace.

Even a Stopped Clock...Unlikely Bedfellows...The Whole Schmear

2010-07-08T19:43:01Z

I'm a hard core, unapologetic, pro-choice supporter. So check out the following and guess where I'm going with this.

Via HuffPo: "Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle has moderated a host of policy positions in her transition from a primary candidate to general election contender battling Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. One thing she has not backed away from has been her insistence that abortion should be outlawed universally, even in cases of rape and incest.

In a radio interview Angle did in late June, the Tea Party favorite re-affirmed her pro-life sensibilities (rigid, as they are, even within Republican circles), when she insisted that a young girl raped by her father should know that "two wrongs don't make a right." Much good can come from a horrific situation like that, Angle added. Lemons can be made into lemonade."

Guess what? Angle is right. She's wrong, of course, about lemons/lemonade, etc. but right in that the anti-abortion, so-called "moderate" position is hypocrisy that only helps support the pro-choice position.

I've always gone squinty-eyed at those anti-abortion believers who carve out exceptions for rape and incest. If an unplanned pregnancy is not the kid's fault, then it never is, and it has an ironclad, irrefutable right to be born whatever the circumstances of conception. Why should those two situations, however heinous, make a difference? Either all future life has a right to be born or it doesn't.

So, points to Angle for being consistent and even downright brave (though she may be only another loony woman-hater. Women are the worst, you know.)

Here's hoping she's sane enough to force her opponents into a debate on why rape and incest are different viz choice. Having that argument, I believe, will make more folks understand that it shouldn't take the end of the world for a woman to demand control over her own body. While rape and incest are heinous atrocities, being forced to bear children that you don't want to have is awful, too. Especially in a world which gives less than a damn about women's lives, professions or choices, or what happens to the 'have nots' once they're born. So, forcing decent folks to admit that rape and incest exceptions cannot be squared with an anti-abortion position will bring us that much farther to them questioning their basic right to control our bodies.

If abortion is wrong when the condom breaks or when you couldn't be bothered to use one, then it's just as wrong when there's rape or incest. Either it's about the fetus or it's not.

Be a Patron of the Arts: Support an Independent Author

2010-07-07T17:02:00Z

For those of you who've been asking how you could help, here's how.

I've decided to self-publish my next book (see: post-internet implosion of journalism and publishing) and am asking the reading public to help me do so.

I've started an event on Chip-in. Check it out here and thanks.

Enable, Apologize Much?

2010-07-06T23:20:05Z

Lord, let my people go!

Via John Schwade: Whoever this J. Cole person is, he's dragged an entire city's black community into the gutter with him. His new video is yet another new low in the kind of wretched rap beleaguering us all.

Monsieur Cole can't rap for more than about four syllables without invoking 'mf's,' 'skank ho's', 'bitches' and all the rest of the minstrelsy that keeps most of us from even attempting to ferret out the worthy rap offerings.

Much worse this time is that the city of Fayetteville, a HBCU, and --unbelievably--- a local high School allowed their vulnerable students to be a part of this filth.

Judge for yourself, but the local columnist cravenly attempting to provide cover for this lowlife (and his attendant child abuse) only makes things worse: "Recently, Fayetteville State University, whose cheerleaders are in the video, and E.E. Smith high school, whose band is featured in the video, publicly blasted the artist for the strong language used in the song. Uh, apparently there was some huge conspiracy in which both schools were entirely unaware of how to operate iTunes, communicate with their staff or students or use Google, leading to their being blindsided by the release of the video."

"Strong language"? OK. That's one way to put it.

My fave from the Neanderthal defending Cole and his use of youngsters to purvey his trash: "We know what you’re thinkin’ “J. Cole, who dat?” … Though your thoughts might have included better use of grammar and pronunciation … Well, sit back and we’ll tell your inquisitive ass."

Nice, isn't it? Especially given his own 'interesting' use of syntax, grammar, punctuation and basic argument: "After all, if the “n-word” is forbidden in a song, how does one apply that to Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, or Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird?"

He's kidding, right?

Sadly, no. There's more: "Does popular art have to have a certain age to it, before it can be protected by freedom of speech? Does obscenity have an expiration date? Is it a matter of subjectivity? Strong language is fine in books we like, but offensive in music that we don’t? Is it fair for teachers to impose their views on what constitutes art on the students?"

Oh dear.

No wonder journalism is dying.

He's right in that the city and both schools should have listened to the lyrics and found out how Cole intended to portray his hometown (think post-Apocalypse, just like all black communities) before refusing to cooperate but - having actually understood Logic 101 - that doesn't make his 'song' worthy of airtime, let alone a municipal stamp of approval.

Methinks a certain 'columnist' is angling for his own record deal. More likely, he's just your basic knuckle dragger confusing his ability to type with an ability to reason. Or employ proper English. Sadly, those never have "a certain age to it".

In Which I Workshop a Scene from Dickens

2010-07-05T14:51:00Z

You know what turns out not to be a scam? All those ads, mall kiosks, and We Buy Gold storefronts you've been seeing. They're legit.

For nearly a year, I've been lugging around all my 'good' jewelry in a big, doubled baggie at the bottom of my purse. Why the hesitation? On the one hand, I couldn't imagine getting more than chump change for the accumulation of a lifetime, so why not keep it for Miss Thing? On the other, disbelief at the prospect of having to do something so downright Dickensian. Something so cliched. Thinking about it actually made me laugh at the ridiculousness of my life. What's next: selling my blood?!

But, last week, the question settled itself; try to sell the bling-baggie or lose my life insurance policy. I've already lost my bar membership with its $300 annual fee. (God knows I'll never pass the exam again but it will cost me $800 each time to try. The ridiculousness of this, too, makes me laugh.) So, consigning my scant finery to the fiery furnace (they melt it all down) is a no-brainer; it comforts me more than I can convey to know I'm worth more to them dead than alive. There is just no way I'll leave them destitute and motherless.

So, they cavorted while I watched "Sue", the sweet young thing below scrape and weigh and just take her work so seriously it broke my heart.

At 24, she's been married for three years. "Oh no! No kids yet. I said at 25, by that's just six months away..." She paused to collect her thoughts. "You know sometimes? I love him to death but..."

I'm the last person on the planet to give relationship advice, so I just nodded and smiled.

OK, one piece of advice: "Definitely, don't short shrift your friends and family, OK?" Because they'll be the ones picking you up when YOUR MARRIAGE TURNS OUT TO HAVE BEEN A BIG, HUGE, HONKING, SOUL-DESTROYING, YOUTH-STEALING, CAREER-ENDING MISTAKE OF EPIC PROPORTIONS! AND DO NOT, I REPEAT, DO NOT HAVE HIS CHILDREN WHEN YOU'RE STILL HAVING DOUBTS AND IT'S NOT TOO LATE FOR A POST-NUP AND*&^())**&^&_)*&^%^%%%%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!GODDAMN MOTHERFUC*&^%!!!!!!!!!!MAYBE YOU CAN STILL ANNUL?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But, I didn't say that last part. Just the friends and family thing.

She finished her assaying, offered me enough to keep the life insurance for another six months and to see Toy Story III to boot! Yippee!!

So, there was nothing left for it but to wave bye-bye to the Turkish gold bracelets the kids received as baby gifts. The lovely gold earrings my gay boyfriend gave me as a consolation/coming-out prize. The exotic accoutrements I bought myself as I traveled the world in the 80s and 90s.

Got to keep the scam-bangle from Hydra that turned out to be either not gold, or unsalable as less than 10 carat. Can't remember which.

My Cyprus charm. It clocked in at 18 carats but I decided not to part with it.

This was given to me on a trip from Ankara, Turkey to Cyprus in 1990 or so. I was with a group of extremely ugly Americans who embarrassed me at every turn, and the above boyfriend who was soon to come out as gay . Not a great trip.

So, I peeled off from the both of them and wandered about on my own. An exceedingly handsome young Cypriot owned a charming jewelry shop I wandered into and we just gobsmacked each other. Speechless and staring and blushing; the whole schmear. Finally, he managed to say, "I dreamed last night that an...American woman would...I can't remember all the details now..."

I waited until he stopped stammering, thought of my gay boyfriend back in our room and, with all the Jessica Rabbit I could muster said," I guess that makes me your dream girl."

There was a lot more but the bottom line is: I won't part with my Cyprus charm.

The only remaining question: do I sell my wedding/engagement ring and the jewelry I've only worn at said wedding? How about my wedding dress? They have zero sentimental value to me, but perhaps to my daughter when she's older?

Still jobless, perhaps circumstances will answer those questions for me as well.

For The Fourth of July: A Cheap Shot I Only Pray is True

2010-07-03T17:08:00Z

True Story.....

Luke AFB is west of Phoenix and is rapidly being surrounded by civilization that complains about the noise from the base and its planes, forgetting that it was there long before they were. A certain lieutenant colonel at Luke AFB deserves a big pat on theback. Apparently, an individual who lives somewhere near Luke AFB wrote the local paper complaining about a group of F-16s that disturbed his/her day at the mall.

When that individual read the response from a Luke AFB officer, it must have stung quite a bit.

The complaint:
'Question of the day for Luke Air Force Base:

Whom do we thank for the morning air show? Last Wednesday, at precisely 9:11 A.M, a tight formation of four F-16 jets made a low pass over Arrowhead Mall, continuing west over Bell Road at approximately 500 feet. Imagine our good fortune! Do the Tom Cruise-wannabes feel we need this wake-up call, or were they trying to impress the cashiers at Mervyns early bird special?

Any response would be appreciated.

The response:

Regarding 'A wake-up call from Luke's jets' On June 15, at precisely 9:12 a.m., a perfectly timed four- ship fly by of F-16s from the 63rd Fighter Squadron at Luke Air Force Base flew over the grave of Capt. Jeremy Fresques. Capt Fresques was an Air Force officer who was previously stationed at Luke Air Force Base and was killed in Iraq on May 30, Memorial Day.

At 9 a.m. on June 15, his family and friends gathered at Sunland Memorial Park in Sun City to mourn the loss of a husband, son and friend. Based on the letter writer's recount of the fly by, and because of the jet noise, I'm sure you didn't hear the 21-gun salute, the playing of taps, or my words to the widow and parents of Capt. Fresques as I gave them their son's flag on behalf of the President of theUnited States and all those veterans and servicemen and women who understand the sacrifices they have endured..

A four-ship fly by is a display of respect the Air Force gives to those who give their lives in defense of freedom. We are professional aviators and take our jobs seriously, and on June 15 what the letter writer witnessed was four officers lining up to pay their ultimate respects.

The letter writer asks, 'Whom do we thank for the morning airshow? The 56th Fighter Wing will make the call for you, and forward your thanks to the widow and parents of Capt Fresques, and thank them for you, for it was in their honor that my pilots flew the most honorable formation of their lives.

Only 2 defining forces have ever offered to die for you....Jesus Christ and the American Soldier. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.

Lt. Col. Grant L. Rosensteel, Jr.

USAF

OK. So I'm a Reactionary Throwback, Just Like the Kind Of Parents Y'all Rebelled Against in the '60s

2010-07-03T00:26:00Z

One intrepid reader has already called me on my kneejerk reaction to Miss Thing's choice of reading material.

Fortunately, advanced readers though they both kids are, she's no where near advanced enough to get through Leave it to Cleavage, so I may give it back to her. If she asks. "Reading' five chapters in about 30 seconds was my first clue. But the basic question remains: do I stick to my guns and let them read anything at all or do I....can't think of any Orwell-speak for this....censor their reading?

How do the rest of y'all navigate these potentially treacherous waters?

I can just imagine their second and fourth grade teachers this fall calling Child Protective when they start quoting from the Tropic of Cancer....

HELP?????!!!!!

In Which I Back Off From Yet Another Promise to the Kids, Self

2010-07-02T15:28:00Z

A book worm from the word go, I always swore I'd never censor my kids' reading choices. I read a great many books as a youngster that I should never have been allowed to (God's Little Acre and Of Human Bondage come to mind). But, if it came from the library, my parents paid no mind; I turned out fine, right? So, no censorship.

Then I took the kids to get our Georgia library cards yesterday. Lefty bee-lined for the computer, Miss Thing for the stacks. Busy with paperwork at the desk, I looked over to find her smiling with contentment, her face stuffed in a book. She'd piled at least 10 more on the table beside her chair and stroked them absently as she read. Beaming as only a proud mother can, I must have snapped at least ten cell cam photos.

But must be thorough, right? I finished getting our new cards, then came over to get a good close up of the book making her so happy. Here it is:

So. Censorship it is.

P.S. The pouting won out, so I let Miss Thing check this garbage out, planning all the while to 'lose' it once we got home. But no worries, after teasing me relentlessly for Miss Thing's book choices, Skippy spirited it off to her bedroom lair to enjoy at her leisure.

It's Good to Be White

2010-07-02T15:21:00Z

According to HuffPo Chinese companies are hiring white guys just to sit around being white.

Reminds me of Louis CK's hilarious ode to whiteness.

If You're Divorced, Turn It Into a Sitcom

2010-06-29T14:38:00Z

NYT : " Louis C. K.’s routine mostly take a wickedly scatological look at life after divorce — raising children, dating and aging — but his delivery is low key and even diffident. He is funniest as a stand-up when he takes a step away from his bawdy comic riffs to poke holes ruefully in his own discourse.

"On one episode of “Louie,” he is onstage delivering a disquisition about having sex with animals. “I really think if I was alone on the earth, no other humans, I would have sex with a monkey in like two minutes.” He stops, and laughs scoffingly, not at zoophilia, but at his time allowance. “Two minutes,” he snorts. “That’s really not long enough to be sure you are alone on the earth.”...

"On the pilot episode Louie is a volunteer chaperon on his daughter’s field trip to the New York Botanical Garden and gets into a Larry Davidish confrontation with an incompetent bus driver. The bus gets stuck in Harlem, and Louie, worried about the neighborhood, makes the children change seats so the darkest ones are next to the window."

Wonder why he got divorced....

If You're Divorcing, GET OFF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

2010-06-29T14:25:00Z

Associated Press: Facebook Tops In On Line Evidence in Divorce

"Oversharing on social networks has led to an overabundance of evidence in divorce cases. The American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers says 81 percent of its members have used or faced evidence plucked from Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social networking sites, including YouTube and LinkedIn, over the last five years."...

Examples:

"_ Husband goes on Match.com and declares his single, childless status while seeking primary custody of said nonexistent children.

_ Husband denies anger management issues but posts on Facebook in his "write something about yourself" section: "If you have the balls to get in my face, I'll kick your ass into submission."

_ Father seeks custody of the kids, claiming (among other things) that his ex-wife never attends the events of their young ones. Subpoenaed evidence from the gaming site World of Warcraft tracks her there with her boyfriend at the precise time she was supposed to be out with the children. Mom loves Facebook's Farmville, too, at all the wrong times.

_ Mom denies in court that she smokes marijuana but posts partying, pot-smoking photos of herself on Facebook."

Bottom line: don't make it any easier for the bottom feeding lawyers out there. They're not all bottom feeders (my two weren't). Just most.

Alphabet Soup, by Susan Orlean

2010-06-25T18:44:00Z

Think being a fancy author and journalist is glamorous? Think again. Even the great Meryl-Streep-Starred-In-My-Movie Susan Orlean can't figure the publishing world out anymore.

Great. The URL insertion thingee is on the fritz again, AARRRGH: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/susanorlean/

Get Over It! Folks Get Divorced, So Here's One Way to Deal

2010-06-25T17:46:00Z

Crushed wedding rings from a divorce ceremony.

Reuters : "With divorce on the rise in Japan, some couples are choosing to celebrate the end of an unhappy marriage by saying "I do" for a final time at a divorce ceremony before friends and family."

And here's a lovely little essay from a survivor of a bitter divorce on why the divorce ceremony wudda worked for her.