Althouse: The 23-year-old wife of the actor Gary Coleman was arrested for domestic violence, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.

July 3, 2009

The 23-year-old wife of the actor Gary Coleman was arrested for domestic violence, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.

Coleman is 41.

I'll do the math for you: (41 ÷ 2) + 7 = 27.5.

Nevertheless, crimes are crimes, and we are all responsible for our own behavior.

31 comments:

Fred4Pres said...: Did she toss him like the post about the pig below?; 7/3/09, 8:42 AM
Laura(southernxyl) said...: Start with 41, not 21.; 7/3/09, 8:44 AM
traditionalguy said...: It may be child abuse if she is an inch over five feet tall. Maybe she caught him on a Morman version of Craig's list (Brigham's Band) placing an ad for extra wives.; 7/3/09, 8:56 AM
Anonymous said...: here is the rule for middle children who are invisible anyway. especially boomer middle children. well, actually there aren't that many middle children after the boomer years.

you take the age of the oldest sibling, you take the age of the youngest sibling.

there. that is the age of your dating prospects because that is the pop culture and zeitgeist that was alive in your growing years. Probably leans toward the older side if you left home and didn't experience all the youngest siblings teenage years.; 7/3/09, 8:58 AM
Anonymous said...: Price allegedly locked Coleman out during an argument and was yelling obscenities out the window, had thrown items around the home and upended furniture.

I never noticed an age limit, although I suppose this does get a bit tiresome by the time the furniture-upending spouse reaches his/her 40's. Really, the mid-to-late-30's are the peak years for wives to lock husbands out of houses. Mrs. Coleman seems to be advanced for someone so young, so I don't think the "half your age +7" rule applies here. I mean, what other 23-year-old has already mastered every one of these classic moves?; 7/3/09, 9:05 AM
ricpic said...: I said one from column A, feng, not one from column B, you dumb Cantonese.; 7/3/09, 9:09 AM
john marzan said...: do the math for us?

it's 41/2, miss ann.; 7/3/09, 9:17 AM
traditionalguy said...: I heard on NPR a story about the making of Cherie into a movie. It's a great french novel about a 60 year old lady, like an Auntie Mame, having a real love affair with a man in his 20's. The cougars, who are 60 year old women who hunt love with a 20-30 age single man, have their story told in Cherie. The tragedy is that the man is left with a broken heart when his soul-mate dies on him when he is only 32. For him, younger women have no love skills like the 60+ age women have. A baby boomer story for these days.; 7/3/09, 9:21 AM
The Dude said...: Avogadro's number is really big, too.; 7/3/09, 9:24 AM
Original Mike said...: I'm 53. So I double my age and subtract 7 and I find a women 99 years old is too old for me.

But 98 is OK?

Uh-huh.; 7/3/09, 9:41 AM
dbp said...: I think the equation should be constantly modified as one ages so that the result always comes out to 27.; 7/3/09, 9:46 AM
Anonymous said...: i have this theory that the generation of male children my kids age(past drinking age 20 year olds) are having real problems because their moms weren't home for them. it's like all those men's advocates who say a girl needs her dad. Well there were lots of these frat boys who never ever got a mom like they read in story books when they were four or five because it takes some years for the children's pyschologist and the children literature to catch up.

so lots of these frat boys are all after milfs. it is so blazingly apparent that they missed the mother in apron probably because they were reading.

also the mom's who did stay home,( what about four of us from the seventies) and played baseball with their sons and chased them around the block and did the hard and heavy work at home instead of getting glued to an office chair tended to be the ones to stay in shape. And now freakin idiots going around making fun of them calling them cougars. I find it sickening to even think about dating anything my sons age. I have that much respect for my sons. Now if the other boys would have that much respect for milfs.; 7/3/09, 9:51 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "Start with 41, not 21."

Oops. Typo. The math was right.; 7/3/09, 9:53 AM
Ann Althouse said...: "I think the equation should be constantly modified as one ages so that the result always comes out to 27."

I can't imagine being sexually interested in a 27-year-old.

On the half your age plus 7 scale, I could go as low as 36, but that seems to have very little potential. One could try to invent a 36-year-old with all sorts of special qualities that would make it work, but I need someone who can make the same song lyrics allusions and remember reacting to Richard Nixon and Vietnam and a million other things.; 7/3/09, 9:58 AM
traditionalguy said...: Nansealinls...Your "Having Respect for someone" thoughts are so old fashioned today, that you will be stuck with us older guys who don't even have any tatoos to excite you. But as forrest Gump said, "We do know what love is...".; 7/3/09, 10:00 AM
Anonymous said...: so ann,

you are of more of my theory.

i can befriend people younger, even talk with them. not about drugs and movies or national news because i am not interested in that. I end up talking observations, cars, even sex in a non romantic style.

how would i ever be able to think that young people would chase my tail. it is out of my realm of possibility to think that. the puke factor. they would have to hypnotize me or get me drunk or drug me to get in such a mood.; 7/3/09, 10:06 AM
Anonymous said...: I had an old fashioned guy but he turned very ambitious and became enamored with corporate culture when i turned against such things.

now i have to look for someone six feet, not married, old fashioned, not a big alcohol drinker, and physically fit, around fifty give or take five years.

that is a very, very hard search. so i stopped.

After three years of going through hell, you keep on going or you make the most of the ride by yourself.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=91OQwco7a58; 7/3/09, 10:17 AM
Crimso said...: "Avogadro's number is really big, too."

Yes, but this isn't an episode of "Celebrity Mole."; 7/3/09, 10:29 AM
Kylos said...: Original Mike, your math is backwards. 92 i your upper limit, not that changes things much.; 7/3/09, 11:25 AM
David said...: Hey, according to this I'm still eligible for a woman in her 30's (barely.) Frankly, I think that would be pushing it. My wife would agree.; 7/3/09, 11:44 AM
Jeff with one 'f' said...: "One could try to invent a 36-year-old with all sorts of special qualities that would make it work, but I need someone who can make the same song lyrics allusions and remember reacting to Richard Nixon and Vietnam and a million other things."

A-ha! Now we know why the Boomers have shoved their culture down the throats of Gen X e al for the last three decades. "Yes, dear, th 60's WERE the most interesting and fulflling time to be alive in all of human history!"; 7/3/09, 11:46 AM
Original Mike said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/3/09, 12:39 PM
Original Mike said...: Kylos - I used this formula from the Urban Dictionary link:

The full version states: "if you halve your years then add seven, you'll have the youngest decent age for a partner; if you double your years then subtract seven, you'll have the oldest decent age for a partner"..

But either way, this formula seems to have an expiration date. A date that I, though not yet having expired, have apparently exceeded.; 7/3/09, 12:42 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "now i have to look for someone six feet, not married, old fashioned, not a big alcohol drinker, and physically fit, around fifty give or take five years."

If you're not at least 6 feet tall, you're a fool.; 7/3/09, 12:43 PM
XWL said...: I doubt either partner in that relationship match the emotional maturity of a 23 year old, let alone a 41 year old (some folks who didn't get to be children while children, like Coleman or Michael Jackson, try to recreate a childhood for themselves into pathetic middle age).

I don't think past cultural touchstones matters as much as they used to. For one, all pop cultural moments linger, so a 25 year old today may have grown up on the same bad sitcoms and music as a 40 year old, or a 40 year old as a 60 year old. Also, there hasn't been a 'monoculture' for a long time, so even people of the same age could have had completely different experiences of the time they shared.

My basic rule of thumb, my own age +/- 12 years, but exceptions can be made for exceptional individuals (on the low side, I know she's a newlywed, but for Scarlett Johansson, I'd still make an exception should she become available, I'm generous that way, and on the high side, Helen Mirren, if she should ever tire of her husband, I'm available); 7/3/09, 1:23 PM
Anonymous said...: let me state this rawly and not with any romantic notions:

my six foot requirement has to do with body mechanics.

i have a very long torso. actually if my legs were proportionate as most women's i would be six feet barefoot. Posture is important to me and how i sleep and how i see eye to eye with people.; 7/3/09, 1:45 PM
Anonymous said...: I always knew XWL was a man of taste and discernment, but he proves it beyond all doubt with his appreciation of Scarlett Johansson and Helen Mirren, neither or whom, I think, would be the sort to be arrested for assaulting their husbands.; 7/3/09, 2:36 PM
XWL said...: I really don't think it takes an exceptional person to find both Johannson and Mirren attractive, but thanks for the kind words, anyway, Theo Boehm.

Here's another way to express the intent of the Urban Dictionary guideline:

Where X is your age, and Y is the acceptable age range for prospective partners

.5X+7 > Y < 1.5X-7

By expressing the formula in these terms, you avoid getting very different results for calculating an older partner when compared to a younger partner. Using this formula to get your 'decent' dating range; for a 26 year old you get a range of 20-32 which seems reasonable, for a 40 year old you get 27-53 which also seems reasonable, and for a 60 year old you get 37-83 which is starting to get unreasonable, but certainly wouldn't be seen as indecent.; 7/3/09, 3:38 PM
XWL said...: Oops, both symbols should be 'less than' symbols, please ignore that first 'more than', here's the corrected notation

.5X+7 < Y < 1.5X-7

And actually, those should be less than or equals to signs, so here's the corrected formula below that gives a range of values for Y, where Y is a 'decent' age for a person of X years to date

.5X+7 ≤ Y ≤ 1.5X-7; 7/3/09, 4:25 PM
Kylos said...: Original Mike, I would guess that the Urban Dictionary editor made a common math error when expressing the formula (Urban Dictionary not being known for its collective knowledge of math). My assumption is that your upper range should match your partner's lower range and vice versa. If that is indeed the case, then the range formula is:

(X/2) + 7 < Y < 2(X - 7)

The reason for this is that you must reverse the order of the operations of the formula when you reverse the direction of the formula. For example, fahrenheit to celsius is computed as (f - 32)*(5/9) but celsius is calculated as c*(9/5) + 32.; 7/3/09, 5:38 PM
former law student said...: An arrest affidavit says police were called to the home after Price allegedly locked Coleman out during an argument and was yelling obscenities out the window, had thrown items around the home and upended furniture.

These are crimes in Utah?

Sounds like Coleman's wife was trying to provide him a little constructive criticism, and he just wasn't responding properly. So, naturally she had to find less subtle ways of getting her point across.; 7/3/09, 11:18 PM