NCR Today

When I was in college, well-meaning professors and counselors encouraged me to seek out summer internships in journalism as a great way to make contacts and launch a career. But I couldn't afford it.

I worked every summer to help pay for my college expenses, and drove my father's bread truck on the weekends so he could finally get a day off. The idea of working for nothing -- for something vague like contacts that may or may not pay off down the road -- seemed like an extravagance in which I could not indulge.

Several thousand Catholics from around the U.S. and even a few foreign countries gathered in Detroit June 10-12 to ponder their assessment of the present and hopes for the future of the Catholic Church. The weekend revealed some toxic aspects of today's version of the institutional Church. It also revealed some expected and also disturbing aspects of the groups gathered. The single phenomenon that has forced into the open the tragic and often toxic flaws of the institutional Church has been the worldwide sex abuse crisis. Yet, officially, the American Catholic Council only gave the abuse issue a passing nod: a single breakout session.

I'm miserable. Really. This is not a play for pity or the prelude to a plea for cash. I'm just simply miserable because I spend around two hours a day sitting in my car fighting traffic. And now some scientist in Sweden says this could very well ruin my marriage.

Well, I can definitely share this: it certainly isn't making it any more fun.

Here's what happened: until six months ago, my office was about a 15-minute drive from my house. Twenty on a tough day. An easy commute by Los Angeles standards. In fact, my wife and I moved to our current neighborhood just because it was close to nearly every major media company in town -- this way, no matter where our careers took us, we'd be covered commute-wise.

But then in January, my group moved to Santa Monica. On Google maps, this adds only ten or so miles to the drive each way. But in real-LA-traffic terms, it is the seventh circle of hell with asphalt instead of fire. The commute places me on Southern California's two busiest and accident-prone freeways with few real alternatives. I get to work keyed up and aggravated; I come home exhausted and frayed.

As if I needed this confirmation, along comes a study from Sweden, which (who knew?) apparently has traffic troubles of its own. Researcher Erika Sandow reports that long commutes can actually drive up the divorce rate by 40 percent.

On this day we celebrate the feast of St. Aloysius Gonzaga of the Society of Jesus. He was born on March 9, 1568, and died on June 21, 1591.

Click here to see "St. Aloysius, when about 17 years and a half. From an oil painting by an unknown master of the School of Paul Veronese (Cagliari). The picture is in St. Aloysius' Cappelletta in the Jesuit College, Rome."